mean in His going about doing good That by giving Glory to God in the Highest and by endeavouring as much as in us lies to procure and promote Peace on Earth and Good Will amongst Men we may at last be made meet to be made partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light Through the Mercies and Merits of our B. Saviour and Redeemer Amen Almighty God who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our Nature upon Him and as at this Time to be born of a pure Virgin Grant that we being regenerate and made thy Children by Adoption and Grace may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit through the same our Lord Jesus Christ who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the same Spirit ever one God world without end Amen SERMON V. Concerning the Sacrifice and Satisfaction of Christ c. HEB. IX 26. But now once hath he appeared in the end of the world to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself AMONG many other great ends and reasons for which God was pleased to send his Son into the World to dwell amongst us this was one of the chief that by a long course of the greatest innocency and the greatest sufferings in our Nature he might be capable to make a perfect Expiation of Sin But now once in the end of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the conclusion of the Ages that is in the last Age of the World which is the Gospel Age hath he appeared to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself The general design of God in sending his Son into the World was to save mankind from eternal death and misery and to purchase for us eternal life and happiness So the Author of our Salvation himself tells us That God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Now in order to the procuring of this Salvation for us the impediments and hindrances of it were to be removed these were the guilt and the dominion of Sin By the guilt of Sin we were become obnoxious to the wrath of God and to eternal condemnation and by the defilement and dominion of it we were incapable of the happiness of Heaven and the reward of eternal Life To remove these two great hindrances two things were necessary the Forgiveness of sins past in order to our deliverance from the wrath of God and the eternal torments of the next Life and the Reformation of our hearts and lives to make us capable of eternal Life and happiness in another World And both these if God had so pleased might for any thing we certainly know to the contrary have been effected by the abundant mercy and powerful grace of God without this wonderful method and dispensation of sending his Son in our Nature to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself But it seems the wisdom of God thought fit to pitch upon this way and method of our Salvation and no doubt for very good Reasons amongst which these three seem to be very obvious and very considerable First To vindicate the honour of his Laws which if Sin had gone altogether unpunish'd would have been in great danger of falling into contempt For if God had proclaimed a general Pardon of Sin to all mankind without any testimony of his wrath and displeasure against it who would have had any great veneration for his Laws or have believed in good earnest that the violation of them had been either so extremely offensive to Him or so very dangerous to the Sinner Therefore to maintain the honour of his Laws rather than Sin should pass unpunisn'd God would lay the punishment of it upon his only begotten Son the dearest Person to him in the World Which is a greater testimony of his high displeasure against Sin and of his tender regard and concernment for the honour of his Laws than if the Sinner had suffered the punishment due to it in his own person Secondly Another Reason of this Dispensation and that likewise very considerable was that God might forgive Sin in such a way as yet effectually to discountenance and discourage it and to create in us the greatest horror and hatred of it Which could not have been by an absolute Pardon without any punishment inflicted or satisfaction made to the honour of his Justice For had Sin been so easily forgiven who would have been sensible of the great evil of it or afraid to offend for the future But when God makes his own Son a Sacrifice and lays upon him the punishment due for the iniquities of us all this is a demonstration that God hates Sin as much if it be possible as he loved his own Son For this plainly shews what Sin deserves and what the Sinner may justly expect if after this severity of God against it he will venture to commit it And if this Sacrifice for Sin and the Pardon purchased by it be not effectual to reclaim us from Sin and to beget in us an eternal dread and detestation of it If we sin wilfully after so clear a revelation of the wrath of God from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men there remains no more sacrifice for sin but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation to consume the adversaries For what could God do more to testify his displeasure against sin and to discountenance the practice of it than to make his only Son an offering for Sin and to give him up to be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities In what clearer Glass can we at once behold the great evil and demerit of Sin and the infinite goodness and mercy of God to Sinners than in the sorrows and sufferings of the Son of God for our Sins and for our sakes Thirdly Another Reason of this Dispensation seems to have been a gracious condescension and compliance of Almighty God with a certain apprehension and persuasion which had very early and universally obtained among Mankind concerning the expiation of Sin and appeasing the offended Deity by Sacrifices by the Sacrifices of living Creatures of Birds and Beasts and afterwards by Human Sacrifices and the blood of their sons and daughters by offering to God as the expression is in the Prophet their first-born for their transgression and the fruit of their body for the sin of their souls And this Notion of the expiation of Sin by Sacrifice whether it had its first Rise from Divine Revelation and was afterwards propagated from Age to Age by Tradition I say from whence soever this Notion came it hath of all other Notions concerning Religion excepting those of the Being of God and his Providence and of the Recompences of another Life found the most universal reception and the thing hath been the most generally practised in all Ages and Nations not only in the old but in the new discovered parts of the World And indeed
to send his own his only Son into the World to seek and save us and by Him to repair all our ruines to forgive all our iniquities to heal all our spiritual diseases and to crown us with loving kindness and tender mercies And what Sacrifices of Praise and Thanksgiving should we also offer up to this gracious and most merciful Redeemer of ours the everlasting Son of the Father who debased himself so infinitely for our sakes and when he took upon Him to deliver Man did not abhor the Virgins womb Who was contented to be born so obscurely and to live all his life in a poor and persecuted condition and was pleased both to undergo and to overcome the sharpness of Death that he might open the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers Every time we have occasion to meditate upon this especially when we are communicating at his H. Table and receiving the blessed Symbols and Pledges of his precions Death and Passion How should our Hearts burn within us and leap for Joy How should the remembrance of it revive and raise our Spirits and put us into an Extasie of Love and Gratitude to this great Friend and Lover of Souls And with the B. Mother of our Lord how should our Souls upon that blessed occasion magnify the Lord and our Spirits rejoyce in God our Saviour The Holy men of old were transported with Joy at the obscure and confused apprehension and remote foresight of so great a Blessing at so great a distance It is said of Abraham the Father of the faithful that he saw His Day afar off and was glad How should we then be affected with Joy and Thankfulness to whom the Son of God and B. Saviour of Men is actually come He is come many ages ago and hath enlightened a great part of the World with his Glory Yea He is come to us who were in a manner separated from the rest of the World To Us is this great Light come who had so long sate in Darkness and the shadow of Death And this mighty Salvation which He hath wrought for us is near to every one of us that is willing to lay hold of it and to accept it upon those gracious terms and conditions upon which it is offer'd to us in his H. Gospel And by His Coming he hath delivered Mankind from that gross Ignorance and thick Darkness which covered the Nations And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding to know him that is true And we are in Him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal Life And then it immediately follows Little Children keep your selves from Idols What can be the meaning of this Caution and what is the Connection of it with the foregoing Discourse It is plainly this That the Son of God by His Coming had rescued Mankind from the sottish Worship of Idols and therefore he Cautions Christians to take great heed of relapsing into Idolatry by worshipping a Creature or the Image and likeness of any Creature instead of God And because he foresaw that it might be objected to Christians as in fact it was afterwards by the Heathen that the Worship of Christ who was a man was as much Idolatry as that which the Christians charged the Heathen withal Therefore St. John effectually to prevent the force of this plausible Objection though he perpetually throughout his Gospel declares Christ to be really a Man yet he expresly also affirms Him to be God and the true God and consequently Christians might safely pay Divine Worship to Him without fear or danger of Idolatry We are in Him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal Life Little Children keep your selves from Idols But this I am sensible is a Digression yet such a one as may not be alltogether useless To proceed then in the recital of those great Blessings which the Coming of the Son of God hath brought to Mankind He hath rescued us from the bondage of Sin and from the slavery of Satan He hath openly proclaimed Pardon and Reconciliation to the World He hath clearly revealed eternal Life to us which was but obscurely made known before both to Jews and Gentiles but is now made manifest by the appearance of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who hath abolished Death and brought Life and immortality to light by the Gospel He hath purchased this great Blessing for us and is ready to confer it upon us if we will be contented to leave our Sins and to be saved by Him A Condition without which as Salvation is not to be had so if it were it would not be desirable it could not make us happy because our Sins would still separate between God and us and the guilt and horrour of our own minds would make us eternally miserable And now surely we cannot but thus judge that all the Praises and acknowledgments all the Service and Obedience which we can possibly render to Him are infinitely beneath those infinite Obligations which the Son of God hath laid upon the Sons of men by his Coming into the World to save Sinners What then remains but that at all times and more especially at this Season we gratefully acknowledge and joyfully commemorate this great and amazing Goodness of God to us in the Incarnation of his Son for the Redemption and Salvation of the sinful and miserable Race of Mankind A Method and Dispensation of the Divine Grace and Wisdom not only full of mercy and condescension but of great power and vertue to purifie our hearts and to reform our Lives to beget in us a fervent love of God our Saviour and a perfect hatred and detestation of our Sins and a stedfast purpose and resolution to lead a new Life following the Commandments of God and walking in his ways all the days of our life In a word a Method that is every way calculated for our unspeakable Benefit and Comfort Since then the Son of God hath so graciously condescended to be made in all things like unto us Sin only excepted let us aspire to be as like to Him as is possible in the exemplary Holiness and Vertues of his Life We cannot be like Him in his Miracles but we may in his Mercy and Compassion We cannot imitate his Divine Power but we may resemble Him in his Innocency and Humility in his Meekness and Patience And as He assumed Human Nature so let us re-assume Humanity which we have in great measure depraved and put off and let us put on bowels of mercy towards those that are in misery and be ready to relieve the poor for His sake who being rich for our sakes became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich To conclude Let us imitate Him in that which was his great Work and business here upon Earth and which of all other did best become the Son of God I
by any thing that hath been said to contribute towards the putting an end to so unhappy a Controversy which hath troubled the World so long and raised such a dust that very few have been able to see clearly through it However I cannot dismiss this Argument without making some useful but very short reflection upon this great Doctrine of our Religion namely That the Son of God being made a Sacrifice for us and exposed to such bitter Sufferings and so cruel a Death for the Expiation of our Sins should create in us the greatest dread and detestation of Sin and for ever deter us from all wilful transgression and disobedience For if the guilt of our Sins was done away upon such hard terms and cost the dearly beloved Son of God so much sweat and blood then surely we ought to take great heed how by our renewed Provocations we renew his Passion and do what in us lies to crucify to our selves the Son of God afresh and to put him to an open shame If God did so terribly afflict the dearly beloved of his Soul for our sakes if the Son of God was so grievously wounded for our transgressions and so sorely bruised for our iniquities If so fearful a Storm of Vengeance fell upon the most innocent Person that ever was for our Sins then we have reason to take that kind and merciful admonition of the Son of God to Sinners to sin no more lest a worse thing if it be possible come upon our selves In this Dispensation of God's Grace and Mercy to Mankind by the Death of his Son God seems to have gone to the very extremity of things and almost further than Goodness and Justice will well admit to afflict Innocency it self to save the Guilty And if herein God hath expressed his hatred of Sin in such a wonderful way of love and kindness to the Sons of Men as looks almost like hatred of Innocency and his own Son This ought in all ingenuity and gratitude to our gracious Redeemer who was made a curse for us and loved us to that degree as to wash us from our Sins in his own Blood I say This ought to beget in us a greater displeasure against Sin and a more perfect detestation of it than if we had suffered the punishment due to it in our own Persons For in this Case we could only have been displeased at our Selves and our Sins as the just Cause of our Sufferings but in the other we ought to hate Sin as the unhappy occasion of the saddest Misfortune and sorest Calamities to the best Man that ever was and to our best Friend for our Sins and for our Sakes Since then the Son of God hath so graciously condescended to be made in all things like unto us Sin only excepted let us aspire as much as is possible to become like to Him Above all let us hate and avoid Sin as the only thing in which the Son of God would have no part with us though he was contented to suffer such bitter things to save us from the Defilement and Dominion of it from the Punishment and all the dismal consequences of it He had no Sin but God was pleased to lay upon him the iniquities of us all and to make his Soul an offering for Sin and to permit all that to be done to Him which was due to us He was contented to be sacrificed once for all Mankind that Men might for ever cease from that inhuman and ineffectual way of sacrificing one another whereby instead of expiating their guilt they did inflame it and by thinking to make Atonement for their Sins they did in truth add to the number and heinousness of them And let us likewise learn from this admirable Pattern to pity those that are in misery as Christ also hath pitied us and to save them that are ready to perish for His sake who came to seek and to save us that were lost Let us upon all occasions be ready to open our bowels of Compassion towards the Poor in a thankful imitation of his Grace and Goodness who for our sakes chose to be a Beggar that we for his sake might not despise the Poor but might have a tender regard and compassion to those whose Condition in this World does so nearly resemble that in which the Son of God thought it fittest for him to appear when he was pleased to become Man In a word Let us in the whole course and in all the actions of our lives shew forth the Vertues of Him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light and hath raised up a mighty Salvation for us that being delivered from all our spiritual Enemies from Sin and all the Powers of darkness we might serve him who hath saved us walking in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our lives Now to him that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb that was slain To God even our Father and to our Lord Jesus Christ the first begotten from the dead and the Prince of the Kings of the Earth Unto him who hath loved us and washed from our Sins in his own Blood and whilst we were Enemies to Him loved us at such a rate as never any man did his Friend To Him who became Man that he might bring us to God and assumed our frail and mortal Nature that he might cloath us with Immortality and Life To Him who was pleased to dwell and live amongst us that he might teach us how to live To Him who dyed for our Sins and rose again for our Justification and lives for ever to make Intercession for us To Him be Glory and Dominion Thanksgiving and Praise to Eternal Ages Amen SERMON VI. Concerning the Vnity of the Divine Nature and the B. Trinity c. 1 TIM II. 5. For there is one God THE Particle for leads us to the consideration of the Context and Occasion of these words which in short is this The design of this Epistle is to direct Timothy to whom St. Paul had committed the Government of the Church of Ephesus how he ought to demean himself in that great and weighty Charge And at the beginning of this Chapter he gives direction concerning Publick Prayers in the Church that Prayers and Thanksgiving he made for all men and for all Ranks and Orders of men especially for Kings and all that are in Authority that under them Christians might lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty And this he tells us was very suitable to the Christian Religion by which God designed the Salvation of Mankind and therefore it must needs be very acceptable to him that we should offer up Prayers and Thanksgivings to him in behalf of all men For this saith the Apostle is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth And then it follows in the next words
plainly see this every year There are many things likewise in our Selves which no man is able in any measure to comprehend as to the manner how they are done and performed As the vital union of Soul and Body Who can imagine by what device or means a Spirit comes to be so closely united and so firmly link'd to a material Body that they are not to be parted without great force and violence offer'd to Nature The like may be said of the operations of our several Faculties of Sense and Imagination of Memory and Reason and especially of the Liberty of our Wills And yet we certainly find all these Faculties in our selves though we cannot either comprehend or explain the particular manner in which the several Operations of them are performed And if we cannot comprehend the manner of those Operations which we plainly perceive and feel to be in our Selves much less can we expect to comprehend things without us and least of all can we pretend to comprehend the infinite Nature and Perfections of God and every thing belonging to Him For God himself is certainly the greatest Mystery of all other and acknowledged by Mankind to be in his Nature and in the particular manner of his Existence incomprehensible by Human Understanding And the reason of this is very evident because God is infinite and our knowledge and understanding is but finite And yet no sober man ever thought this a good reason to call the Being of God in question The same may be said of God's certain knowledge of future Contingencies which depend upon the uncertain Wills of free Agents It being utterly inconceivable how any Understanding how large and perfect soever can certainly know beforehand that which depends upon the free Will of another which is an arbitrary and uncertain Cause And yet the Scripture doth not only attribute this Foreknowledge to God but gives us also plain Instances of God's foretelling such things many Ages before it happened as could not come to pass but by the Sins of Men in which we are sure that God can have no hand though nothing can happen without his permission Such was that most memorable Event of the Death of Christ who as the Scripture tells us was by wicked hands crucified and stain and yet even this is said to have happened according to the determinate foreknowledge of God and was punctually foretold by Him some hundreds of years before Nay the Scripture doth not only ascribe this power and perfection to the Divine Knowledge but natural Reason hath been forced to acknowledge it as we may see in some of the wisest of the Philosophers And yet it would puzzle the greatest Philosopher that ever was to give any tolerable account how any Knowledge whatsoever can certainly and infallibly foresee an Event through uncertain and contingent Causes All the reasonable satisfaction that can be had in this matter is this that it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that infinite Knowledg may have ways of knowing things which our finite Understandings can by no means comprehend how they can possibly be known Again There is hardly any thing more inconceivable than how a thing should be of it self and without any Cause of its Being and yet our Reason compels us to acknowledge this Because we certainly see that something is which must either have been of it self and without a Cause or else something that we do not see must have been of it self and have made all other things And by this reasoning we are forced to acknowledge a Deity the mind of Man being able to find no rest but in the acknowledgment of one eternal and wise Mind as the Principle and first Cause of all other things and this Principle is that which Mankind do by general consent call God So that God hath laid a sure foundation of our acknowledgment of his Being in the Reason of our own Minds And though it be one of the hardest things in the world to conceive how any thing can be of it self yet necessity drives us to acknowledge it whether we will or no And this being once granted our Reason being tired in trying all other ways will for its own quiet and ease force us at last to fall in with the general apprehension and belief of Mankind concerning a Deity To give but one Instance more There is the like Difficulty in conceiving how any thing can be made out of nothing and yet our Reason doth oblige us to believe it Because Matter which is a very imperfect Being and merely passive must either always have been of it self or else by the infinite Power of a most perfect and active Being must have been made out of nothing Which is much more credible than that any thing so imperfect as Matter is should be of it self Because that which is of it self cannot be conceived to have any bounds and limits of its Being and Perfection for by the same reason that it necessarily is and of it self it must necessarily have all perfection which it is certain Matter hath not and yet necessary Existence is so great a Perfection that we cannot reasonably suppose any thing that hath this Perfection to want any other Thus you see by these Instances that it is not repugnant to Reason to believe a great many things to be of the manner of whose Existence we are not able to give a particular and distinct account And much less is it repugnant to Reason to believe those things concerning God which we are very well assured he hath declared concerning Himself though these things by our Reason should be incomprehensible And this is truly the Case as to the matter now under debate We are sufficiently assured that the Scriptures are a Divine Revelation and that this Mystery of the Trinity is therein declared to us Now that we cannot comprehend it is no sufficient Reason not to believe it For if this were a good Reason for not believing it then no man ought to believe that there is a God because his Nature is most certainly incomprehensible But we are assured by many Arguments that there is a God and the same natural Reason which assures us that He is doth likewise assure us that He is incomprehensible and therefore our believing Him to be so doth by no means overthrow our belief of His Being In like manner we are assured by Divine Revelation of the truth of this Doctrine of the Trinity and being once assured of that our not being able fully to comprehend it is not reason enough to stagger our belief of it A man cannot deny what he sees though the necessary consequence of admitting it may be something which he cannot comprehend One cannot deny the Frame of this World which he sees with his eyes though from thence it will necessarily follow that either that or something else must be of itself which yet as I said before is a thing which no man can comprehend how it can be