answer that first I think we may without vanity challenge all the power and force of their Wit and Learning to do its utmost Let us see if they be in earnest whether they be not extremely ignorant and if we may have the leave or pardon of this Royal Audience to provoke them with a great but just reproach whether they be not both bold and blockish Of which the second Cause of infidelity will give some Account 2ly And that is the difficulty of apprehending and conceiving those intellectual Objects which are absolute Such as are the Properties and Actions of God Angels humane Souls whence some have concluded them to be mere Words and Talk or mistaken for some corporeal Nature Such are those who first beginning at the substantiality and immortality of the Soul proceed to deny the Providence the Attributes and at last the very Being of God impudently affirming nothing can be conceived by us but Body and that which belongs to it This miserable Infirmity of humane Nature confines the noble Soul of Man to the most ignoble and dead part of the Universe deprives it of its greatest pleasure and perfection and debaseth it both in its knowledge and manners in its perceptive and active Powers The men who are most liable to it are those of much secular Business and Employment perpetually taken up with observation and reasoning and plodding about sensible objects and affairs of this bodily Life And some there are running so far to the extreme of this side as to give little either encouragement or opportunity to any other knowledge or employment of the mind of man besides Mechanicks Trade and civil Justice as if all other things were mere Chymera's and unprofitable fruitless empty Notions and nothing deserved our regard but only how to handle a Tool well or to buy and sell or at the highest to prevent or decide a Controversie about an House Field or Fence and other little Properties Which indeed are at present necessary and of great use for Temporal plenty and peace but are not in the least to be compared to the goods of the Spirit and to the hopes acquisition and enjoyments of immortality in the Heavens Alas how little do such men understand or consider that if all the furniture of this momentany bodily Life be not designed by God and used by us for spiritual and eternal good things it is scarce worth our coming into Being at all much less undergoing the manifold uneasinesses incommodities cares and calamities of it The effects of this humour and genius in a Nation to which lapsed and degenerate Mankind are prone enough for some small time prevailing seems to be profound ignorance and oblivion of intellectual and heavenly things the increase of Atheism irreligion and prophaneness Immorality in heart and life any further than it is inconsistent with secular interest and restrained by the Laws of civil Society For which one reason it seems highly expedient or rather absolutely necessary to set a-part one order of men in considerable number with places and other proper and convenient Circumstances to preserve and improve the knowledge and esteem of spiritual and heavenly things amongst Men otherwise truly in great danger to be lost And without which we should live like the Fish and Mole as ignorant of the nature and privileges and felicity of the superiour World infinitely the vastest and noblest part of the Universe as they are of ours It is more than likely some men may be content with it But surely they will be so humane and charitable as not to hinder but to help those which are not It is certain that the two great differences between that part of the World which is called barbarous and that which is civil are intellectuality and charity and so far as we lose either we return again to Barbarism 3ly Another most frequent and lamentable Cause indeed of infidelity is licentiousness Men would live as they list and gratifie and indulge their lusts to the full without any fear restraint or allay And because their consciences are at first more or less troublesome they endeavour to bribe corrupt and bring them over to their party to tell them that they may safely and honestly too follow such courses For that which is ordinarily believ'd say they and talked of vertue and vice and difference of Actions except only from agreeableness and present pleasure of God his Sanctity and Justice of Heaven and Hell of Reckonings and Recompences hereafter are but imagination and talk or false or at least dubious things These men do the Work throughly of debauching and eternally ruining themselves they do not only hire their Consciences to be silent or stand Neuters but to give their lusts all possible assistance and encouragement like some who have fought desperately in a bad cause not without conscience but with one as bad as their cause And here these Persons who will suffer themselves to be thus abused by their lusts ought timely to be aware in what great danger they are not only to deny the Lord that bought them but also the Lord that made them with all Religion that ever Reason and Nature hath taught and consequently to be deny'd by them 4. In men of an haughty spirit that very temper of theirs is a frequent cause of infidelity they will needs be uncontroulable by any and not endure any bounds to their desires and enjoyments but what they please to set themselves It is for ordinary and low spirits and not for such great minds as they are so say their flatterers and they believe them to suffer themselves to be restrained by any Laws of Nature Reason or Religion or to depend upon any Being whatsoever so much as to hope or fear from him and therefore they will not believe there are any such things Men who speak as big as Pharaoh Who is the Lord that I should obey him Exod. 5. 2. Poor creatures who though they are not a jot wiser or better and truly comparatively very little greater than other meaner Mortals yet they 'll aspire to the Prerogative of God their Creator to whom by reason of his essential Sanctity immutable Justice all comprehending Wisdom and Almighty Power it only belongs to know no other Laws but those of his own Nature and Will and to court no Power superior to his own 5ly We may add to these a certain gayness of spirit in some men These hate all care attention reflection and foresight which contract the spirit and causeth it to gather it self together and consequently they like not to hear of or believe nay they are resolved to disbelieve every thing which may disturb the security or confine the liberty or darken the gayety of their minds It is plain if we entertain and settle in our minds the great practical Truths of revealed and natural Religion they will oblige us to make use of some prudence and attention to direct our Actions by certain Rules to a certain
Justification it self God's imputing Christ's Righteousness to us in such manner is one Cause of our Justification but Justification it self or the using of us in such favourable and kind manner is the effect of that imputation Nor 6 and lastly is Justification a bare remission of sins They who say so speak too little for the using a man as a Righteous and just man is not negative only or doing him no harm but positive also doing him good and therefore it contains not only security and exemption from the evil of suffering but the bestowing the good things of enjoyment the principal of which are spiritual and eternal the Assistances for Vertue here and Heaven hereafter or Grace and Glory as is usually said I will only here observe that although such as I have said be the general notion of Justification of sinners yet it must here in the Text be restrained to those instances of favour which follow Faith taken for a quality in us such as remission of sins c. because it is said justified by saith Faith is the Cause of Justification viz. a condition qualifying or capacitating Cause Justification or being used kindly by God is the effect of this our Faith And so much for the Explication of the Term Justification In summ this it is to use or treat a Person as useth to be done to a just and good man which is to do him no harm but to bear him good Will some way or other to do him good shew him favour and kindness For the second Term faith I mean justifying or saving Faith by which we are said to be justified it is as much contested and perhaps with more difficulty and less certainty resolved than the former of justification I for my part have observed these three significations of it The last of which I intend principally to enlarge my present Discourse upon First The first Sense of it may be Piety or Religion in general or rather religiousness i. e. Such an habitual Temper of mind whereby a man is disposed to obey the Will of God and consequently to do that which is right and just however made known to him from God It is this temper of Soul by which God estimates a good Man and by which he is qualified for God's Approbation Acceptance and Beneficence Particularly in those great Instances of Pardon Grace and Glory Which if vigorous and prevalent and constant enough to denominate us good men will certainly exert it self in all actual Obedience of inward Will and outward Action when it is not necessarily hindred as it may be by pure and invincible Ignorance by Diseases and Disorders of the Body or any external Impediments I say again because I think it wants and deserves Observation that it is according to the Degree and Constancy of this habitual Inclination of Soul that God estimates us and we shall be dealt withall by him Outward Actions especially and inward too are contingent may cease and are liable to an hundred Hindrances and Obstructions when the habitual Inclination of the Will is a constant thing and remains fixed in the Soul which God certainly knows though others and even our own selves sometimes may be ignorant of it so that the Jews from whom probably the Mahometans had it might save themselves and God the labour of casting up and weighing their good and bad Actions to know which Number weighs most and how the Case will stand with them in the Day of Judgment any further than they are signs of the Degree and Constancy of habitual Temper sometimes fallible enough But let this stand for a little Digression To return I cannot yet tell what better notion to fix upon faith when it is said The just shall live by faith quoted by Saint Paul Rom. 1. 17. and Gal. 3. 11. from Hab. 2. 4. to prove Justification not to be by the Law but by Faith and that too Synecdochically put viz. The Doctrine of the Condition of Justification for all the rest of the Gospel-doctrine concerning it as we shall presently more largely discourse The just shall live by faith i. e. A good and just Man by his Piety and Religiousness shall be in the Favour of God so as to be safe and happy when the proud and wicked Man forsaking God shall be forsaken by him An habitually Religious man which will certainly produce actual Obedience to God whensoever he sufficiently declares his Will and Laws ever was and ever will be approved accepted and favoured by God Which as he did once by Moses so hath he in these last days more evidently and perfectly by his Son the Lord Jesus Christ Wherefore it is not necessary that the just Man should live or be justified only by the actual Observance of the Mosaical Law which is what the Apostle proves by these words Let us examine a little the importance of the whole Verse in Heb. 10. 38. and Hab. 2. 4. The just shall live by faith but if he draws back so it is to be rendred there being no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there but supposed to be put in by our own Interpreters in favour of the Doctrines of absolute Election and Perseverance My Soul shall have no pleasure in him We shall not meddle with the difference of the Heb. in Habb and this quotation by the Author to the Hebrews but only observe That to live is to fare well from God to be approved by him and be in his favour so as to receive from him the Promise of Salvation and Deliverance from their suffering Condition here or after this Life the reward of a happy Condition or both or as it is expressed in the next Verse the saving of the Soul This I say is the sense of living as it is commonly of the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because God's having no pleasure in him i. e. God's disfavour is opposed to it Besides in the Gal. To live not only vivere but valere is plainly of the same importance with Justification in the latter part of the Verse And then for Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is manifestly the believing of God's promises so effectually as to produce an entire submissive and obsequious Temper of Heart to God and consequently an actual Obedience and doing the Will of God in the profession and practice of the Christian Religion because it is opposed to a Man's withdrawing viz from that his Duty to God through fear or diffidence or any other evil Affection And it is of the same importance with that in the following Verse believing to the salvation of the Soul by which a good Man lives Faith by which a good Man lives cannot be either according to common reason or the Tenor of Revelation a bare Assent to God's Veracity Goodness and Power or the fulfilling of his Promises but the effect thereof a dutifull and obediential Heart to God It was in the same manner that Abraham was justified viz. by his Piety and
is to be honoured but then Wisdom and Goodness which are to direct and determine that Power deserve it much more It is true Wisdom and Goodness without Power are moveless and ineffectual things but then Power without them may be most mischievous Goodness without Power if it can do no good yet it can do no harm But power without goodness may be used to make miserable if it be managed by Cunning Pride Malice and Ill-nature But above all is that Person honourable and amiable where Greatness Wisdom and Goodness are in Conjunction as it is in God with Infinity The Examples of such work marvellous Effects in their Sphere and carry all before them They have great force to change the very inward Springs and Principles of Men's Actions their Opinions and Inclinations at least they outwardly bind them to their good Behaviour And oh that Heaven as it hath begun among us would go on to bless the World with such an Happiness and refresh the Souls of Righteous men grieved and tired with wicked Generations by so beautifull and lovely a Sight And here we cannot miss to make the Observation how much greater obligations the Great are under to look at their Conduct and Example than others and how much larger their Account will be for the Evil they have and the Good they might have done and what can be said by those for themselves who because they are great already will be greater than God himself who made them so and take that liberty which he never used 3. A third Cause of the greater influence of bad Examples is their Confidence Promptness and Fierceness Good men more generally unless they be very happy in the Gifts of Eloquence quick Apprehension and Courage all together converse with Caution and consequently are more sparing in their Speech and Actions more modest in their Affirmations more tender of the Reputation of their Conduct more carefull of their own peace and satisfaction more sollicitous concerning the influence of their Examples Now the confidence and boldness of bad Examples is usually accompanied with some Wit and Freedom of Speech and Carriage and some Passion always with more vigour and life Which things are more discernible and acceptable to most Company than good Sense and Reason and often make so great an impression as almost to force themselves upon those who assuredly know much better There is also in such Confidence a certain heedlesness and negligence which carries the Air and Appearance and is some ingredient of Generosity and Courage which first much commends the Persons and then their Discourse and Actions especially to those who are their Equals or Inferiours and are no wiser than themselves though in other Circumstances where it may seem excessive or unseasonable to understanding Men it is usually as offensive Finally the confidence of bad Examples to the greatest part of Spectators is a sign of assurance of Truth and Reason in what they say and do at least of no great harm or folly but where the former inclinations to imitation are back'd by appearing Reason its force is irresistible On the contrary Calmness and Reservedness seem lifeless dubious cowardly and even when they are thought to be the Effect of Wisdom and Judgment yet they are gratefull but to very few of the same temper and the Examples of such reach the Generality with no force or with very little impression Whence good Men may be advised that there is place and reason sometimes for Freedom and a handsome Confidence in conversation though many very wise may want that faculty managed with a regard to the Measure Seasonableness and other Circumstances and with a Design to convey as opportunity may serve some good sentiment and instruction It is a laudable and usefull Dexterity in conversation to communicate wise and vertuous things with advantage and to convey it acceptably and particularly with a seeming heedlesness of what one is doing when indeed it is the main Design to do it well like as the discreet Physician may seem to his ungovernable Patient to be doing nothing of consequence when he designs the administration of some effectual Remedy for his Disease 4. The last Cause we shall name is the most general Corruption of Humane Nature consisting principally in prevailing Inclinations to other Objects above those to Religion Vertue and Wisdom The depravation and vitiosity of our active Powers is this that those Appetites and Inclinations which should be moderate governable and subservient are the most violent ungovernable and commanding Though this Cause be very general yet it is not remote but near and immediate This is the reason why supposing good and bad Examples equal in number set before us and recommended alike advantageously we should except here and there one secured by a rare Felicity of Temper or the Grace of God without much deliberation enter our selves into the worst Company This is the reason why if Orations could be made with equal seeming Reason and Eloquence for Vertue and Vice and we were the Moderators perfectly left to our own liberty without the restraint of shame we should soon heartily determine against Vertue This is the Reason at the Bottom why one single Example of one great Man hath more influence than twenty of the prudent and vertuous the wise and the good 'T is because our very opinions as well as our practices are perverted and corrupted We esteem admire and love Power more than Goodness to be great rather than good to do what we list rather than what we ought And then our general Veneration and great Opinion of the Great inclines us to a particular promiscuous Approbation and Imitation of what he is and doth 'T is from this miserable inborn Propension of our Natures to Vice heavy and forcible that if sometimes by the most excellent and celebrated Examples we are a little heaved upwards that 's all and we presently flop down again all at once And sometimes they do not in the least move us and all their beauty and lustre no more affect us than if we were deaf or blind 'T is from hence till it be changed that like the fi lt by Swine we will never learn to be cleanly though in the Midst â—f a verdant Meadow covered with innocent Sheep if there be but one Puddle where we may wallow in the Mire or like some naturally clownish and slovenly People who will never be taught any decent Carriage and Manners though always in the Company of those who are gentile and well-bred Oh the deplorable Pravity and Degeneracy of Mankind desperate and utterly incurable without a mercifull Touch by the Finger of God and the special powerfull Influence of his Grace preventing following assisting our earnest Prayers and serious Endeavours without which the Company of Heaven it self would never mend them They would still retain the Propensions and Inclinations nay the Actions too if they could of Devils and Brutes in the midst of Saints and Angels These
any in sincerity and reality but only for by-ends and in outward appearance But this is certainly false and there are those in the World who after impartial Enquiry and mature Deliberation of what is really true and good nor do they affect to be mistaken as wilfully vicious Men do are convinced that Vertue and Holiness are the Perfections of their Nature and the only Source of Felicity of Life which leaves not there but intirely possesseth them with the most inward inclinations of their heart to it and with the most ardent Aspires to the utmost perfection of it their Nature can receive and are so uneasie under the Delays Hindrances and Oppositions they meet withall in this State that they have oft-times much ado to secure their patience and dutifull Behaviour to God Almighty That against the pretended impossibility 2. For the great difficulty pain and pain we say that it is not so great and frightfull as is usually imagined For 1. We are not alone and helpless far from it There is in this design and resolution of rescuing our selves from the Dominion and Slavery of that evil One of blind Concupiscence contemptible Appetites and pernicious Lusts and of returning to our just Obedience to God and Reason there is I say one greater for us than all that are against us The Grace of God is always ready to assist us Nay it is that which prevents us all in some degree or other with good Counsels and Desires and causeth us to begin to look the right-way to bethink our selves to be serious and not to play the children all our lives This if we cherish them is more at hand still and if conscious or suspicious of our own weakness we by earnest Prayers implore it and by our Endeavours concur with it we shall not fail of such a supply which together with the Divine Providence disposing the circumstances of our lives will render the Work much easier than was at first thought and in some time delightfull The Heathens themselves were not ignorant of Divine Operations and Influence upon the Souls of Men but it makes a considerable and in my Opinion a very august part of the Doctrine of Revealed Religion But 2 It is truly said that this difficulty of change from bad to good of withdrawing from old but evil company and practice is principally at the beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Things are indeed by the Divine Disposition come to that pass that Vertue is to be sweat for at the beginning the way to it at first is steep and rough but when the Ascent is mounted there opens a spacious and smooth plain which makes abundant recompence by its ease and delight The suite the progress of a virtuous and holy state of Soul perpetually exercising itself in Acts of Godliness Righteousness and Sobriety is full of pleasures the most sincere penetrating constant and durable without any mixture remorse uncomfortable reflexions suspicions or forebodings nay multiplied by remembrances and hopes which Vice never dared to pretend to When the first brunt is over and the Inclinations of the mind set right and restored to their primitive just and natural order and constitution for Virtue was first Vice super-induced the great pain and difficulty then will be to commit a sin to do a foolish or ill thing and continue in it the ease the pleasure will be to acknowledge condemn and forsake it Then the scales will be turned not gratifying obeying submitting to a malapert Appetite an insolent Lust a blind Passion but the denial command suppression steady Government of all these by Religion and Reason will be our glory peace and intimate satisfaction They have been the Heathens too who have said such things as these of which sure many of these very Wanderers could not be ignorant Semita certè tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitae Much like that of the Divine Poet Great peace have all they that keep thy Law Now if it be thus as most certainly it is bad Men are mistaken in their plea and much out in their reckoning when they fright themselves and others from a good and virtuous life by the painfulness of it For the tediousness and pleasure of an whole journey such as our life is would be very childishly estimated by the first mile or two And yet further 3 I think it most certain that we may not shrink at the first onset that the very first steps of change and conversion from bad manners to good some of the first Acts of Repentance Such as are self-condemnation indignation sorrow and contrition of heart for our most beloved sins firm resolution utterly to forsake them followed with watchfulness and endeavour earnest prayers to God for forgiveness I say even these have that secret pleasure and satisfaction attending them which out-weighs their trouble and difficulty 'T is true to be disordered ashamed confounded and vexed at our wickedness and folly to despise and reproach our selves to pull from our hearts with a violent hand that which hath had so long and kind an abode there and still makes great resistance for all cannot be done at once this certainly by it self is no desirable condition But then it is blended with or immediately followed by a strange secret joy and satisfaction diffused through the intimate recesses of the Spirit from a sense of the beginning recovery and reconvalescency of our Souls of their restitution to their natural constitution at the first birth of Souls of the assured reconciliation and favour of Almighty God our Heavenly Father and finally of an hopeful nay safe condition to Eternity So that take all together a Man may with great assurance affirm that there is or may be more of joy than sadness more of ease and comfort than pain and sorrow in Repentance the sowrest diet a good Man tasts of and this proportion is still the greater by how much the grief for sin is more penetrating and pressing as being an evidence of its sincerity A Penitent upon his knees sipping in his briny Tears as they trickle may take down a more delicious draught than he who quaffs off his full Bowls filled with the choicest Liquors Sincere Repentance is like relief under a heavy burden or the setting a disjoynted limb or the recovering of good appetite clear health and vigorous sense by a bitter Potion or two So is it I say even now found by experience as unhappy as our nature now is and those who are at present very hard to believe it will never I am sure employ their time better than to make tryal of it themselves All this I doubt not was most remarkably verified in holy David one of the greatest Souls that ever dwelt in an earthly Body of which he himself be witness in several Psalms and it may be often observed in other good Men after such a performance who without any design never appear more easie and pleased in themselves and more innocently
enlarge and indulge his carnal appetites and lusts would command and force all that belongs to all Men to satisfie them if he dared and could Nor can he generally gratifie intemperance luxury and wantonness without Instruments and Companions whom he makes and keeps as bad as himself and never without the mischief of a bad example and of all this were some Roman Emperors examples as notorious as odious and miserable in the end Besides a Sensualist is unjust to God to others to himself all have a right to the use of any power which God hath endued any one withal so far as it will go All power is to do good to its utmost extent like as every member of the body 't is St. Paul's excellent comparison were it endued with understanding would be obliged to do its utmost for the greatest good of the whole not to be in any degree useless or mischievous The Possessour hath only the privilege to judge of Persons Seasons and Measures and accordingly to distribute God is the Master and Owner of all our faculties abilities enjoyments we are but his Stewards The Sensualist impaireth oppresseth or abuseth those powers and faculties which God hath given him for his honour and service for his own and others especially spiritual and eternal good He deprives himself of perfection tranquility happiness a thousand of times more than he enjoys and if chastisement and punishment be just for those who willfully murder or maim their Bodies so it may be by some mark of Infamy or who will idle away their time and strength because their labour and use is lost to the publick and themselves too why not for those who do the same to their Souls The immediate reason of all reward and punishment seems to be the maintenance encouragement propagation of any principle power or action which is good and beneficial and the restraint discouragement oppression of that which is evil and mischievous either privatively or positively and such surely at least is the willfull neglect or omission and consequently impairing of the use of that power any Man hath to serve God and do good withal much more the abuse and conversion of it to dishonour and displease God to oppose and hinder his Service and to do mischief with it The slothfull Servant was thrown into the same kind though perhaps not the same degree of Matth. 24. 51. and 25. 30. punishment with the evil Servant And the evil Servant too was he who eat and drank with the drunken as well as he who smote his Fellow Servant He that did but enjoy himself as the phrase is as well as he who abused others The reason of the Punishment of impenitent Sinners after this Life is not their Amendment that we read in Scripture but the manifestation of the Wisdom Sanctity Justice and Goodness of God in the Government of the World and for Confirmation and Prevention in others For Angels and Saints shall be Spectators and Adorers of the Righteous Judgment of God by Jesus Christ in that great and terrible Day of the Lord. The best reason of the everlasting Continuance of the miserable State of the Condemned seems to be the continuance of the sinfull State of their Souls Their inward Dispositions and Inclinations and Wills being in no sort changed for the better by their Sufferings Which we need not wonder at since we see here such multitude of Examples in whom afflictions and sufferings in extremity alter nothing of their inward Manners not the loss of parts and endowments not Ignominy Poverty Prisons and Gaols not corporeal Diseases and grievous Tortures and Pains nay finally not Death it self for heinous Crimes You may hear them bitterly complain of their misfortunes pains unhappiness but not a word of their sins You shall see them wriggle and turn a Thousand ways for their Diversion Ease and Deliverance but not to the humble Confession of their Sins tho' they know as well as the Damned are like to do that they are the Cause of their Sufferings not to sincere Resolution of Amendment earnest Prayers to an offended God not only for Pardon but for Purification of their Hearts according to that admirable Pattern of that Pious Prince holy David Ps 51. If it otherwise happen in this Life as it doth sometimes it is to be attributed to the special Operations of the Grace of God upon such Occasions Without which even in this present State to him who considers things the habitual Change of our Natures may well seem impossible against the Pelagians how much more then in the State of the Damned hereafter What sufficient reason Origin had so peremptorily to determine that the hideous Sufferings of the Damned would naturally force them as it were to Repentance by which I mean an inward Charge of the very Inclinations of the Soul to love God that all perfect Nature and Goodness or the Sanctity and Purity of his Nature above all other things I know not And Plato himself from whom it Phaed. is like he had the first notice of this Doctrine doth teach that as some wicked Men might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 capable of being restor'd to a vertuous State of Soul by their Sufferings in the miserable State hereafter So others there were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 incurable and consequently to continue there Eternally and never to come out from that Infernal Prison But why Plato should make such a difference between the miserable there I know not excluding any supernatural Operation If Sufferings naturally in some men altered their Opinions and Inclinations of Soul by bringing them to reflexion and consideration first why should they not have that effect in all sooner or later in some time or other And for my part I do not see how any man can hope for an End of Punishment there till he can prove that God will sometime afford his effectual Grace for his Conversion and the Change of his vicious and corrupt Nature And when he can prove the one I think he may be assured of the other For as God will not there any longer suffer the wicked his Enemies to be as well or better treated than the Righteous his affectionate Servants as they seem to be here in outward Respects So will he never keep a good Man in such a bad place and company Perhaps some part of this Discourse may seem too long a Diversion but a little spice of Scepticism or Infidelity from a sculking Objection is so apt to abate or defeat the force of all Arguments and Persuasions to be good that I was not unwilling to mention it for I am not the maker of it and at the same time sufficiently to satisfy it as I hope I have done Though more amply and particularly to prove many of these things will require more time and words than is meet to be spent in this Presence And let this be then the third Answer to the best Plea of the wonderer at the good
in the Affairs of his Soul nor is he slothfull or afraid to take notice of and bring an Indictment against the Offender though it be himself when he thinks he hath been guilty he will bring his Accusation and let him answer for himself as well as he can Nor doth he after this endeavour to withdraw himself not to appear to his Action or Indictment but to sculk lie hid or have the business passed over nor doth he when his carriage comes to be canvassed alledge Pretences make frivolous Apologies shift and turn himself any way to excuse and defend himself or to abate and extenuate what he cannot deny No but he willingly makes his appearance desires nothing more than that the Truth may be known and all that can be said against him may be produced that either he may where he justly can vindicate or where he cannot condemn himself were he is convinc'd of his Faults or Crimes though never so heinous he owns it he cries guilty to God saying O Lord I have indeed transgressed thy Commandments I have done foolishly I have been wicked ungratefull wilfully ignorant or careless or presumptuous I confess it I am perfectly ashamed of my self I despise and abhor my self what shall I say unto thee O thou great Maker and Preserver and Benefactor of Men I am obnoxious to thy greatest Severity and Justice I deserve to be punished as thy unerring Wisdom thinketh most fit I submit my self to thy Sentence and receive and own it whatsoever it shall be as the most just But I hope that Justice may be mixed and allayed with Mercy and that that Goodness which hath some way thus far led me to true Repentance will go on so far to compleat it in me as to render me capable of thy pardon and forgiveness Nor is this Confession forced from this confessing Penitent nor wrung out of him nor thrust upon him by his persecuting conscience which he flies as much as he can nor extorted by the urging Interrogatories of his Friends or Enemies with a great coldness and unwillingness No it is the most free and voluntary he himself discloseth and openeth all his Heart and whatever he knows by himself and earnestly desires both witness and judge too to produce all his faults and to tell him what he may be ignorant of or hath forgotten He is not willing to connive at any in himself though never so criminal and shamefull nor doth he desire any to conceal them from him he hath no darling which he would not look upon because he would not leave or wink hard because he would not see it or believe it to be no sin or so small that it deserves not the trouble of any notice or acknowledgment He drags out his most beloved and his most justly suspected sins and is not ashamed to betray them which he hath so perniciously hugged and which have and would betray him by their Flatteries Insinuations and Charms to his utter Ruin and Destruction He prudently hath his Eye there where there is the greatest danger and his greatest most delightfull and most frequent Sins he will bring to the light and so often till he makes almost the sins themselves to blush and perfectly wonders at his own blindness and stupidity 'T is not a few words only that this man mumbles over or a Repetition of any Form as it were of Recantation with his Lips when he is insensible or perhaps laughs at it in his heart no it is within in his Soul judgment and conscience and affections all within him is employed and moved He is no Hypocrite or Actor of a part but oft-times appears rather on the other hand to have no such thing or to be of no such temper when he is None can tell perhaps whether he hath been in his Closet or what he hath been doing there Nevertheless he doth not refuse if there be just occasion as in publick Devotion to let all the World know both by his words and carriage what he thinks of himself generously to justifie God and his most righteous Laws and Dispensations but to accuse reproach and condemn himself To advise and admonish all men that they beware of what he seeth his Folly in and not to imitate his past bad Example He is willing that good men should understand they have one come over to their party and that bad men should follow him He is very glad to please good men with such a sight nad even to add to the Joy of Angels He soon spies the great benefits of this devout Exercise and is very sensible of the pleasure and comfort of it He now discovers more pravity disorder and sin and more aggravations of them than he did and consequently according to his earnest desire can better prevent or amend them he understands himself infinitely better than he did and sees great reason for humility charity pity and compassion to offenders but not for an indifferency and neglect of the properest way he can use to reform them As he is grave and serious and hath a very indifferent and mean and sometimes contemptuous opinion of himself so is he for that very reason again cheerfull and gay for that nothing is more so than innocence or repentance He makes his address to God Almighty as with great humility and modesty so with great good hopes for success in his requests or for that which is better He makes use of God upon all occasions and in all concerns as his refuge his shelter his support his supply his patron protectour benefactour nay his Father casting all his cares upon him with moderate industry and endeavour but without solicitude and vexation In fine Though he have grievously and unworthily for the time past offended and displeased God yet he is not afraid of him but assured of his pardon love and favour for Christ's Sake because he is well assured of his Repentance and because that God cannot lye who hath said That he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy SERMON IV. PSALM XIV 1. The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God They are corrupt c. AN Argument of late especially often treated of and perhaps in this great Audience and truly for great reason It may be hoped there is less need of it now I am sure there are great hopes that there will be when simplicity probity and piety have more seasoned the first sources of manners and opinions However I doubt there may be some need of it still The God whom the wicked Fool denies only knows when it will be otherwise Good men would rejoyce to see the time and it may come when it shall be as ridiculous to doubt of the Being Attributes and Providence of the true God as it is of the Sun 's Being in Heaven and its influences upon this Earth as indeed it now is too in it self and to an honest man's thinking in a right method But let us briefly run over the