to draw nigh to the Lord yet being put into the High Priests Censor with the Altar coals to give them holy flame and wrapt up in his Cloud and Smoak of Incense that will cover all the failings of my Prayers they may get access into his Ears and his Compassions Indeed how can they choose when Christ does joyn his Intercessions for my requests will go where the High Priests do go he carrys them now He himself doth sit at the right hand of God The intercessions that are made for me are made upon the Throne and therefore cannot be repulst from thence and such desires command and they create effects But should my Prayers fail and should God hide himself from my Petitions withdraw himself and hide his face from them although they be even before his face Yet Secondly I have an Advocate there too 1 Joh. 2. 1 2. If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins one that not onely pleads for me but brings the satisfaction of my Forfeiture in his hands makes the just value plead appears there with his Blood and proves a recompence 'T is Jesus Christ the righteous Advocate that does propitiate and atone for what he pleads for purchase what he begs 'T is true that poor Worm saith he hath provokt thee often Lord but thou didst smite the Man that is thy fellow for it Behold my Hands and look into my Sides see there thy Recompence wilt thou refuse that Satisfaction thy self didst contrive and thy beloved Son did make why did a Person of the blessed Trinity descend from Heaven and Divinity to be made Sin and be a Curse but to Redeem him from the Curse and Sin and to entitle him again to the possession of Heaven and God Why was I Crucified but that thou might'st be aton'd and he be pardon'd Thus he solicites for us there presents himself in our stead as our Attorney He was not a publique person onely on the Crosse but he is so at the right hand of God as he was there our Representative and bore our sins so he is here our Representative and bears our wants was there our Proxey to the Wrath of God is here our Proxey to his Mercies and Compassions He looks upon himself as in our case whose Cause and Persons he supplyes and so is prompted to desire and beg for our poor sakes and he looks upon us as on himself and so obtains as for his own beloved sake pleads as our selves and then as to himself he does decree Sentence and grant For Thirdly I have there a Judge and this is he who sits at the right hand of God to Judge the quick and dead I might have said a Saviour for he was exalted to a Saviour to give Remission of Sins But my Judge is as kind a word For however there be some will cry for Rocks and Hills to hide them from his Face yet this they are afraid of is the Face but of the Lamb Apoc. 6. 16. And it is strange that they who can look upon Hell and charge Fiends in a sin should tremble at a Lamb and fly him so But to the Faithful and sincere endeavouring Christian though he sins as his Advocate is his propitiation so his Judge is his Sacrifice is that Lamb that does take away the sins of the World is his sin-offering his expiation only remov'd off from the Altar to the Judgment-Seat indeed the Mercy-Seat the Throne of his Atonement and his Absolution Where his Judge notwithstanding that his Forfeit shall Decree Possession to him Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you Lastly we have our first fruits for so S. Paul does call our Saviour and then in whatsoever sense that which is done to the first Fruits is applicable to the Harvest all this being hallowed in their Consecration in that sense we our selves are raised to the right hand of God together with this our first Fruits And now O Lord whom have I in Heaven but thee I have my self in pledge and earnest there And then they that rather than have these Interests these Heavenly possessions in present will have onely desires here on Earth are certainly of a perverse and Reprobate choyce Sure it would make Consideration sick to think of the comparison betwixt the after-expectations of a Pious man and those things which our worldly persons call present Enjoyments how for the little spangles of their pride they are so taken with its rustling Pomp they reject Glory that can never wither fade or sully forfeit the being cloath'd upon with Immortality How they lose all that everlasting Heaven means for little things that go by in a Whirlwind come in storm and so they passe away refuse immortal Hallelujahs for a Song cast away solid Joyes and an Eternal weight of Blessednesse for froth for the shaddow of smoak Perchance this may be said for them the nearness of the object does impose upon them they choose something in present rather than dry future hopes But then when that advantage too lyes on the other side their Choyce hath no Temptation when the Pious mans possessions are in hand the others onely in desire in view indeed they may be he does catch at and pursue them still But the hinder Wheel of the Chariot that presses and with larger turns and rowlings hastens after may as soon hope to overtake the first as that man reach a satisfaction still it removes and he does onely heat his appetite in posting after it onely get more desire Now 't is prodigious that these great Men of Sense should be men of such Faith and Expectation as to trust and hope in things that have so constantly so daily mockt their confidences and desires yet be not only Infidels to all Gods blessed preparations which they have nor reason nor Experience against but also have no sense nor rellish of himself in present Not tast nor see how gracious the Lord is 'T is said that the desires of Earthly sensual things do make the greatest part of the Torments of Hell Now though this Doctrine be false and pernicious yet 't is plain that Torment must attend strong passions and most infinite desires which are radicated in the Sinner's heart and which he carries hence and cannot there deposite and to which yet satisfactions are impossible against his knowledge to be mad to have what he knows all the world cannot make it possible for him to have this tears his Soul Affections these that may be said in some sense to fulfil some of the expressions of the Torments of that place their Envy makes the gnashing of their teeth and their Desires are their Uultures Thus Tantalus's ryotous hunger that does gnaw his bowells is his Worm that never dyes and his intemperate thirst his everlasting burnings and his Water that he cannot reach or tast of is his Lake of
dayes there shall come scoffers walking after their own lusts Now the men of our dayes have the luck to obey Scripture thus far as to make that Prophecy to come to passe for those scoffers are come in power and great glory The Psalmist tells us of a Chair of Scorners as if these were the onely men that speak ex cathedra And sure scoffs and taunts at Religion are the onely things that may be talk'd with confidence aloud They imprint an Authority on what is said and conversations that are most insipied on all other scores get accompt as they come up towards this practise Hence they gain degrees commence ingenious as they border on these Atheistical and irreligious Blasphemies and when it is pure scorn then it is in the Chair But it stayes not there For Secondly Upon the same account of strictnesse of Religion men will fall off from and openly renounce both Christ and his Religion This is that our Saviour himself found Light saith he is come into the World and men loved Darknesse rather than the Light because their deeds were evil And he said of the Pharisees They repented not that they might believe as knowing it impossible that they could venture to believe that Doctrine which condemn'd those courses that they would not repent of And if I should affirm that it is nothing else but mens unwillingnesse to be obliged to those things which if there be a God and a Religion which this Child was set to institute they must account themselves obliged to nothing else I say but this which makes them so unwilling to believe a God or Christ yea openly renounce them both and their Religion I should have for proof of this not only the late instance of a Nation in the Indies which by institution of the Portugals was easily perswaded to embrace the Christian Creed and was Baptized into our Faith but when they were required to lead their lives according to Christs Precepts and renounce their Heathen Licences they chose rather to renounce their Creed and Saviour and returned instantly to their indulgent Heathenisme But to this experience give me leave to add this Reason that it is not the Difficulty of the Misteries of Faith and their being above our Comprehension which makes them not to be receiv'd because there are as great difficulties in things that we are certain of For in the very Sphere of Reason within the lines and measures of her own Infallibility in things of which she does assure her self by diagrams and sense yet she is as much amaz'd as at those objects in the highest and remotest Regions of Faith and Mathematicks hath her Paradoxes that stand in as great danger of a contradiction as any of Religions Mysteries while Reason cannot cape what she demonstrates but is to seek how those things can be possible which she proves most certain and they are incomprehensible to her even when they are most evident And then sure if we can think there is a God we must needs think He can do things which we cannot comprehend when it is plain our Reason cannot comprehend what she her self does find out and creat It is not therefore contradiction to Reason but to Appetite that makes things of Religion so incredible which I thus demonstrate to the Atheist Those very difficulties to avoid which he denies a God to wit Those of an Eternal Being that is of himself those very things he must and does acknowledge in the being of the World if that either be it self Eternal as the Atheist of the Peripatetick Tribe will have it or else if its atomes out of which it was concreted were As those of Epicurus herd assert In a word if they say the World or its materials were made they grant a God that made it If they say they were not made they assert then an Eternal Being of its self that is they allow those difficulties for which they pretend to deny a God There being therefore the same difficulties Greater I could prove them from the diverse natures of corporeal and spiritual beings for we are sure in bodies that are still in motion and so subject to succession those things are impossible but if there be a Being that is not in motion and by consequence not subject to the laws of our time all these knots unty themselves those difficulties vanish and have no place But to say no more than I have shewed there being the same Difficulties in the Atheist's hypothesis as in the other 't is apparent not the difficulties of belief but practise make him fix upon his own against the common notions of the World So that 't is not his understanding but his Appetite frames his hypothesis and without figure 't is his Will that he believes with And it is most evident that because men do not love the Precepts of Religion would not have them be their duty therefore they would have the Doctrines of it not be truths and in this they are the Disciples onely of their Lusts and because they cannot resolve to be otherwise therefore they resolve not to be Christ's Disciples but reject him for his holy Doctrines sake And so this Child is for the fall of many But it were strange if upon this account Christ should be for the fall of any of us who have learnt a trick to reconcile his severe Doctrines and our Sins together Where Vice most abounds though it be wilful and men persevere in it they are so far from finding any reason to fall off from him or from his Gospel for this that they therefore take the faster hold of it rely upon Him with the bolder stronger confidence As if good old Simeon were mistaken when he thought because men would not leave those sins which Christ so threatned therefore they would leave him Because they could not bear those his hard sayings to pull out the lust and the Eye too cast away the treasures of unrighteousnesse and the right hand that receives them also therefore they would cast off him For for this reason they betake themselves to him more eagerly devolve and cast themselves upon him with assurance T is possible indeed that the new Christian'd Indians might believe themselves oblig'd to lead their lives according to the Vow that they had made in Baptisme knew not how to live a contradiction to be Christian Pagans therefore they thought it absolutely necessary to renounce the one and to reject Christ and his strict Religion was easier they thought Our Saviour also might suppose that when he brought Light into the World men would not receive that Light because their deeds were evil But our modern wickednesses that are of the true Eagle kind are educated bred up to endure and to defie the Light Our deeds of Night have learnt to face both Sun and Men yea and face the Sun of Righteousnesse and the light of those flames that are to receive them Our Saviour told
they come from God I might have urged completion of Prophecies to prove the same First those in the Old Testament of the Messiah which so eminently came to passe in Christ that they sufficiently clear those Books to be Divine Next Christ's predictions in the New particularly those about Jerusalem which saith Eusebius He that will compare with what Josephus an eye-witnesse and no Christian writes of it or what our selves know of that Nation and that place indeed he must acknowledge the Divinity of his words But enough hath been said to prove they come from God and therefore we must so receive them as the Word of God with perfect resignation of our Souls and submission of our judgments denying every apprehension that would start aside from and not captivate it self to that prime truth which cannot be deceived nor lye and renounce all discourses Reason offers that resist such abnegation of it self and all our other faculties that is receive this Word of the Kingdom as a little Child I do not here affirm by saying this that our Religion does disdain or keep at distance from the services of any of Mans faculties for it sometimes admits them not as Ministers only but as Judges 'T is plain the senses were the first I do not say conveyance onely but Foundation of Faith which was built on the first Believers eyes and ears they heard the Doctrine saw the Miracles were sure they saw and heard them and so supposing the signs sufficient to confirm the Doctrine to have come from God were certain of their truth without any Authority of a Church to influence that faith into divine And S. John therefore does not onely call in and admit and urge their testimony That which we have heard which we have seen with our Eyes which we have looks upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life that declare we unto you But our Saviour in the highest point of Faith appeals directly to their Judgment Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithlesse but believing And S. Austin also gives them the decision of a point of Doctrine which of all others now troubles the Church most for speaking of the Eucharist he sayes that which you see is Bread and 't is a Cup it is that very thing which your eyes tell you ' t is Tertullian also long before that had appealed to them in that very cause And in an instance where their sentence passes 't is not strange if Reason also take the Chair and do pretend to Judge And truly when the Scripture that does call those Elements Christs Body and his Blood does also call them after Consecration Bread and Wine and since they must be called one of them by a figure for they cannot be in Substance both and since that Scripture hath not told us where the Figure lyes hath not expresly said 't is this but in resemblance that in Substance Here if Reason that hath Principles by which to judge of Bodies which are expos'd to all the notices and trials of our several faculties and to which a Trope is not a stranger it can judge of figurative speeches when it therefore finds if it admit the figure in that form This is my Body 'T is but just the same which was in the Jews Sacrament the Paschal Lamb which they call'd the Body of the Passever though it were but the memorial a figure which was alwayes usual in Sacraments and is indeed essential to Sacraments And which is used in all things that are given by exhibitive signs But if it should resolve it to be Bread Wine onely in a figure besides a most impossible acknowledged Consequence that a man can be nourisht by them which the Romamsts dare not deny nor yet dare grant that men can feed upon a trope be nourish't with a figure besides this if Reason shall resolve that it must judge against all Rules it hath of judging by and judge in contradiction to known Principles and trample on all Laws of sense and understanding which especially when the Scripture hath no where defined expresly must be most unreasonable yea most impossible to judge that true that is to say believe that thing which it sees is most irreconcileable with known truths Here therefore Reason is not insolent if it give verdict by its proper evidences men are not bound to swallow contradictions as they do the Wafer or receive as a little Child that discerns the Lords Body no more then it does the repugnancies that are consequent to their Hypothesis concerning it Or to make another instance when the Scripture says God is a Spirit yet does also give him hands and eyes and ears and wings and these of strange prodigious dimensions neither tells us which of these is proper and which figure Here if Reason that can prove God cannot be a Body and cannot endure his God should be a monster shall be called in to passe sentence they that make Philosophy interpret Holy Writ in this case and give the last resort to Reason do no more usurp or trespasse on Religion then they that make use of Authours or a Dictionary judge of the sense of any Greek or Hebrew word in Scripture But notwithstanding this we may not think the mysteries of Faith are to be measured by the Rules of natural Reason so to stand or fall as they approve themselves to its discourse or Principles For though it be impossible that any Revelation can contradict right Reason truth cannot be inconsistent with truth yet it is very possible God can reveal those truths which we have neither faculties analogal nor principles or notions proportioned to nor any natural wayes of judging or examining And if those faculties which are not capable of cognisance will judge and judge of things removed from all our notices such as Spiritual Infinite Eternal being is and do it by principles gathered from the information of our Senses and by analogy with things of another kind corporeal finite things that are about us reason need not be informed how liable such judgments must be to mistakes and how that which we call repugnancy in one may have no place in the other Here therefore to submit our understandings and believe is but modest justice and to receive as Children what our Heavenly Father sayes And therefore they that will presume to comprehend whatere they are commanded to believe and those that will believe nothing but what they are able to comprehend are alike insolent if not pernicious T is true God by the Gospel hath revealed and brought to light many things which before appeared onely as he himself did in the Temple in a Cloud namely concerning the Divine nature Persons Properties and the Eternal being and the Incarnation of his Son but still as God himself is said to do these also dwell in Light that no man can approach unto Which he that will
Opiniastres and so violent in their way as to deny humanity to those that would not joyn with them they would not grant the Civilities of Passage to one that intended for Jerusalem to Worship They refuse it to our Saviour here because his Face was thitherward v. 53. A Schismatick will reject a Christ if his Face be fromward their new Establishment if he but look towards the Antient Worship At this the Sons of Zebedee are offended zealous for their Master as being most particularly concern'd in him two of his neerest intimates and their zeal would needs break out into flame And why not a rudenesse to Eli jah was reveng'd by him with Fire from Heaven which consumed twice fifty Souldiers and their Captain though they came to do the King's Command And shall these hated Schismaticks be rude to Thee and reject the Messiah and yet go unpunished Lord shall we command fire to come down from Heaven to consume them even as Elias did Which our Saviour answers with this sharp rebuke Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of Not to divide but to explain my Text and so instead of parts present you with some Subjects of Discourse By Spirit here is meant that disposition and complexure of Christian Piety and Vertues that course and Method of Religion which the Spirit does prescribe to Christ's Disciples and does guide them in or in a word the temper of the Gospel is so called And this in opposition to the Law the difference of these being exprest by a diverse manner of Spirit the one is called Spirit of Bondage the other Spirit of Adoption so here Ye know not of what Spirit ye are ye do not judge aright if you believe the temper of the Gospel is like that of the Law The course that I prescribe to my Disciples differs much from that of Prophets under the old Testament you must be guided by another Spirit than Elija's was in calling for Fire if my Spirit dwell in you For I came not to destroy â—â—ens lives on any such account In this sense it affords these propositions First To destroy Mens lives or other temporal rights on this account meerly because they are Apostates Schismaticks or otherwise reject the true Religion or Christ himself is inconsistent with the temper of the Gospel This is that which Christ reproves here telling them that would do so Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of Secondly Because the Spirit of Elias which the Gospel Christian Spirit here is set in opposition to oppos'd the Magistrate destroy'd those that came commission'd from the Prince and Christ designedly does say ye must not do now what Elias did therefore to attempt upon or against the Magistrate on the account of Christ or of Religion is inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel First of the first that to destroy mens lives c. But here I must observe that since these fiery Disciples that did give occasion for our Saviours rebuke here were no Magistrates nor did Christ himself that gave the rebuke assume but renounce openly all such Authority therefore no observation grounded on these words can controul the Magistrates just power in punishing offences done against his Laws although pretences of Religion and Conscience give colour to those offences the Gospel does diminish no rights of the secular Powers Now Supreme Magistrates though as such they have no right to judge in Articles of Faith to define what is true Religion what not for then the Pagan Princes who had never heard of Christ and yet are as much Magistrates as any would have right to judge what Doctrines Christ delivered down to be believed But certainly when Christ Commission'd his Faith to run through all the World not onely independently from all the powers of it but in perfect opposition to them they can have no right to judge in that which whatsoever they shall Judge we are a like bound to receive the Faith of Christ without any the least difference to their judgment But though they have no right to judge of this they have Authority to determine what Faith shall have the priviledges of their State and what shall not which shall be publiquely profest and which they will inhibit with Penalties For sure the Priviledges of the State and power of Penalties are the proper rights of the Supreme Power and therefore none but that can judge and determin of them In a word since it is most evident that the tranquility of a State does depend upon nothing more than the profession and priviledging of Religion it follows that those Powers to whose Judgment and Decrees the care and Tranquility of the State is committed must have the power to judge and to determine what Faith shall be publiquely profest and priviledg'd by the State In which Judgment and administration if they erre and priviledge a false Faith and inhibit the true they use their Powerill and are responsible to God for doing so but they do not invade or usurp a Power that is not their own Rather 't is most certain if the Principles of any Sect or else if not they yet the pursuance of any Principles do tend directly towards or are found to work Commotions and Treasonable enterprises the Supreme Power hath as much right to restrain yea and Punish them although with Death according to their several merits as he hath to punish those effects in any other instances wherein they do expresse themselves Nor must Religion secure those practises which it cannot sanctifie but does envenome For by putting an everlasting concern into mens opinions and actions their undertakings are made by it more desperate and unreclaimable What wounds and what Massacres must the State expect from them that stab and murder it with the same Zeal that the Priest kills a Sacrifice that go to act their Villanies with Devotion and go to their own Execution as to Martyrdom 'T were easie for me to deduce the practise of this Power from the best Magistrates in the best times if that were my businesse who had onely this temptation to say thus much that I might not seem to clash with the Magistrates Power of coercion in Religious causes when I did affirm that to destroy mens Lives or other temporal Rights on this account meerly because they are Apostates Schismaticks or otherwise reject the true Religion or Christ himself is inconsistent with the temper of the Gospel If you would discover what the temper of the Gospel is you may see it in its Prophecy and Picture in the Prophet Isay The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lye down with the Kid the sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den and the Serpent shall eat the dust Whatever mischief these have in themselves there 's nothing of devouring or of hurt to one another in this state 't is like Paradise