which makes Death a miserable condition as it is the sting of the Serpent that makes him a poysonous creature so it is that which makes Death destructive For were Death the expiration of that little spark in the moving of our heart and if our spirit utterly vanisht as the soft air and were it as the Atheist in the Wise man says we are born at all adventure and shall be hereafter as tho we had never bin Death would be so far from all sting that it would be perfect rest and the end of troubles but Sin makes it onely the beginning of sorrows it changes the very nature of death by making that which seems to be the cessation of sensible function to be the very original of the sensibility of torments Then the Sinner doth begin indeed to feel when he dies Death were but the term of a miserable life did not Sin make it the birth of a more miserable life or death I know not whether to call it for it is of so strange a nature that the very uniting of a Sinner's body and soul which is the onely thing we call life God calls death Rev. 22. 13 14. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell or the grave deliver'd up the dead which were in them that is the bodies to be joyn'd to the souls and they were judg'd every man according to their works and in that case all are cast into the lake of fire this is the second death Sin makes Resurrection to be dying and it must needs be so because as afflictions are in this life call'd death as St Paul saith in Deaths often so much more then may those torments of hell be call'd death So that in that death that Sin engages to it is necessary to live always that we may for ever die and it must be so because this makes us liable to the eternal indignation of the offended God which we were not capable of suffering were it not a death of this nature This is indeed death with a sting in it and it is the sense of this approaching that wounds the dying soul when it do's at once call to mind the wickedness of its past life and the wrath that do's await it when he recollects how sinful he hath bin and withall how hateful sin is to God so hateful that it was easier for God to send his Son to suffer death than to suffer sin to go unpunish'd then his own expectations sting and stab his very soul for if God did thus use his own Son how will he use me that have both sinn'd and trod under foot the death of that Son by going on wilfully in my sins Would you then my Brethren find out a way to make death easy and familiar to you you must pull out this sting The Jews say if Adam had continued righteous he should not have died but after a long happy life God would have taken up his soul to him with a kiss which they call osculum pacis he would have receiv'd that spirit which with his mouth he did inspire a kiss of taking leave here to meet in Heaven Wouldst thou have thy death to be the same thing 'T is but becoming righteous with the righteousness of Christ thro whom we have this Victory here in the Text the other part I am to speak to who giveth us the victory thro Jesus Christ our Lords where we have those that are partakers of the Victory and the means thro Jesus Christ our Lord and as to both these this I shall demonstrate over all those enimies in order who the us and how the Victory is gotten First the Law Now that Christ hath redeem'd us from the curse of the Law is said expresly and that by his being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. and what that curse of the Law was is set down in the tenth verse cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do them which no man besides Christ did ever or can do and consequently all mankind lay under that same dreadful curse obnoxious to the wrath of God and the effects of everlasting indignation but Christ by undergoing that curse and by that means satisfying that strict Law procur'd an easier to be set us upon gentler terms not perfect and unsinning strict obedience which was impossible but instead thereof the Law of Faith obsequious Faith that works by love endeavors honestly and heartily and where it fails repents that is grieves and amends and perseveres in doing so For as St Paul assures us we are not under the Law but under Grace Rom. 6. 14. tho we be under the directions of it the duty of it is most indispensable vertue always yet we are not under those strict terms of it according to the tenor of that curse but in a state of favor under terms of grace where there is mercy pardon to be had upon repentance thro faith and where there is encouragement and aid to work that faith and that amendment in us And thus far the Victory accrues to all mankind for all that will accept these terms of this remedying Law of grace the other killing strict Law hath no power over them For the Gospel was commanded to be preach'd to and its terms offer'd every creature under heaven all mankind a victory this that could not be obtain'd but by Christ's bloud the grace and favor of these easier terms for our obedience valued equal with his life for to take of this curse cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do it these strict terms he himself was made a curse and 't will be certainly a most unkind return if that which he thought worth the dying for to get us we shall not think worth the accepting slight these blessed terms and do not care unless we can be free from all necessity of an endeavor freed from vertue too as well as Law But secondly the Law being as we have shew'd it is the strength of Sin in giving it a power to condemn us that Law being taken off that power also cannot but be taken off from Sin and by that means the great strengths of that Enimy defeated Accordingly St Paul do's tell the Romans c. 6. v. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you that is it shall not have by vertue of the Law a power to condemn you for you are not under the Law but under grace are in that state where men are not condemn'd for every gross or heinous sin altho too long continued in but there is pardon to be had for them that will but faithfully endeavor to amend turn from their sins return to Christ receive him and his pardon and where there is also help to do this 't is a true state of grace so that unless men will resolve to force their own
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies O Death where is thy plea by which thou didst attaint men before God's Tribunal where is the right thou hadst over all men to seize and take possession of them what 's become of the sentence that was awarded thee by which all of us were adjudg'd to be thy bond-slaves where is that punishment which thou didst inflict upon us all and by it ruin us To all these rights Sin did entitle thee O Death or as it is here in the Text Sin is thy sting whatsoever power thou hast of hurting man as the Scorpion's venom lies in his sting that power Sin hath given thee and in that it lies without Sin Death were no plague and it is this that makes Death insupportable Now to prove this I need not urge more than what I have already said for if Sin be a sting in the very thought of Death much more pungent will it be when Death it self approaches when the Feaver shall lay hold upon the bloud not onely to revenge the former heats of that lustful or that riotous bloud but to be dawnings of those eternal Burnings which do await the Sinners and shall do more than represent unto thee the heats of that unquenchable brimstone which is to be thy lot and which already doth begin to flash in upon thee Which part of thee do's labor with the more intolerable Feaver thy Body or thy Soul Alas the frost of the Grave would seem to thee a Julip a cool refreshment onely if Sin did not make thee look upon the grave as a downlet to that bottomless pitt which is the lake of fire that is not quencht Nothing possibly can keep an unrepentant Sinner that on his death-bed apprehends his guilt from the horror of despair from being his own Devil and suffering his own Hell in his own bosom upon earth I shall demonstrate this invincibly to you that Sin do's and nothing else do's make Death most insupportable when it approaches Now to evince this my Argument is none other than our Blessed Savior himself in whose Passion the onely imputation of guilt seems to have rais'd the greatest contradictions imaginable If you look upon him preparing for his Passion it seems his onely and most pleasing design as he came into the world for that end so his whole life before it was but a Prologue to it onely a walk to mount Calvary it was his extreme desire I have a baptism to be baptiz'd with baptiz'd indeed with fire and his own clotted sweat of bloud yet this Baptism how am I streightened till it be accomplished Luke 12. 50. He had longing throws after it he did as much desire it as a woman to be deliver'd of her burden Nay it was his contrivance he did lay plots that he might not escape it for when a glorious Miracle had broke from him that did extort the confession of his Deity from Men and Devils he charges these to hold their peace and bids the other tell it no man one reason of which was least the knowing him to be the Son of God should hinder him from suffering He gives it himself Luke 9. 21 22. he straitly charg'd and commanded them to tell no man that thing saying the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected now should they know I were the Son of God they would not crucify the Son of glory You see what care he takes least he should not suffer and just before his passion he come in triumph to Jerusalem with songs and joy about him as if Death were the onely pleasant thing and his passion so desirable that he would go ride to meet it which he never did at any other time And add to all this that the person was the Son of God to whom nothing could be truly insupportable yet when this person comes to meet it see how he entertain it his soul is exceeding sorrowfull he fell on his face to pray against it and while he was in this condition an Angel from Heaven came to strenthen him yet he is still in an agony and prays more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of bloud Now 't was the sense of Sin upon him that made his bloud run out in clotts as it were flying from that sense it was the apprehensions of the guilt imputed to him and the wrath which he knew was due to it did make him apprehend his God who was himself was gon from him made him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Now to say that all this dread were from the mere apprehension of death were horrid blasphemy the meanest Martyr was never guilty of so much weakness No 't was from the sense of the iniquity that was upon it 't was because he was made sin for us he was a man of sorrows saith the Prophet Isaiah because in representation he was a man of sins for he bore our iniquities saith the same Prophet c. 53. The Lord had laid upon him the iniquities of us all and therefore he was oppressed And so I have made appear that Sin is the sting of Death more than if your selves did feel it by an experimental despair for it is more that Sin should make Death terrible to the Son of God than that it should make it insupportable to you And therefore before Death seize you and prostrate you into his dust this consideration may humble you into the dust and ashes of Repentance this I say if Sin were a sting that made Death so insupportable to Christ what will it be to us If the apprehension of it when it came arm'd onely with the imputation of our guilt for he himself knew no sin was so terrible to the Son of God how shall we stand under it when it brings all our own iniquities to seize upon us If he that was a person of the Trinity could not bear the weight how shall we sink under it That which made our Jesus in an agony as if he meant to pour out his soul in his sweat and pray and roar and die will certainly be to us most infinitely beyond sufferance Alas what then will be our hope We have certainly none except we can by Faith and Repentance rid our selves of this Sin which is the sting of Death and makes it to be thus intolerable which how it comes to pass I must now shew 2. Why and how Sin is the sting of Death Sin may seem very properly to be call'd a sting of Death for it was the Serpent that brought Death into the World and Sin was that by which he did inflict it now a sting is a Serpent's proper instrument and a venomous sting it was that could blast Paradise and shed destruction there where the Tree of life bore fruit But that is not all the reason why it should be call'd the sting of Death because it makes us obnoxious to Death but it is that
it does require is very obvious Lord is a word of power and autority it requires service and obedience Nothing more frequent in the Prophets than when they have from God severely worded their commands to add this sanction I am the Lord and as applied to Christ St Paul does say I serve the Lord Christ. A servant is the necessary relative to a Lord and truly doing what he doth command was the use he assigned of all that power he had given him teaching them to observe whatever I have commanded And truly if those Scriptures be remembred which secure his Autority thus let us know that Power was the reward of his sufferings and he endured them partly for the Title 's sake therefore says as much and Heb. 12. 2. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of God did all this that he might gain that place or if that be not plain enough then this is most express Rom. 14. 9. For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living Verse 8. That whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord that is that both our life might be consecrated to him our lives spent on his service and our deaths be at his command and this was part of the end of his death And then I appeal to your own hearts for what end think you he did so desire and obtain this power Do you think when he was set at the right hand of God he was exalted onely to a name that by all those sufferings he did acquire but a bare title to be call'd Lord of Lords as he is call'd Rev. 19. 16. but neither to look after our obedience nor indeed to set us any law to obey as some would have it Was this power so dear to him as that he would suffer all those torments to compass it and yet when he hath it that it should be so little regarded by him as to suffer us to neglect contemn it to go on in a continued course of disobedience to all his precepts to rebel against his Power never submit our appetites to it but let every lording passion fly in his face every lust defy his Autority let us be proud against that Lord be higher than our duties and all the temper of virtues and let every ebullition of our proud wrath trample on a statute back'd with hell-fire yea and so believe that his death should procure us an impunity in doing this What a wretched mistake is this to think his bloud which purchased him a power to command us should purchase us a leave to disobey him This is to make Christ's bloud divided against it self and to make it spill and dash it self That we should go on in a course of iniquity or allow our selves some peevish vices and stop our own consciences and a Preacher's mouth with saying Christ died for us when as 't is clear he died that he might be Lord that is that we might live and dy to him do both at his command and canst thou think that that death will excuse thee for not obeying which was undertaken for that very end that thou mightest obey him Christ died to be thy Lord and thou wilt have that death a plea for thee when thou obeyest sin and the Devil his greatest Enimies His Cross was his very Ensign and Standard against these Enimies his Passion was his grappling with them and his death his Victory And yet thou dost again submit to their authority becomest a subject to their power and settest them Lord over thee and fetchest the justification of this thy defection from that death and victory and that is the same thing as to make them of no autority nor power yea the captivity and ruin of those Enimies to be the reason of thy obeying them to excuse thy disservice to Christ by saying he is thy Lord and for thy rebellion and waging war with him pretend thou dost it under his own standard No certainly his Title claims Obedience and does assure thee thou must serve This is the first thing what thou must do The second what thou maist expect from it is easily discover'd that is wages For he will recompence every man according to his deeds Rom. 2. 6. To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life v. 7. And glory honor and peace to every man that doth good v. 10. For he is the Lord of glory the Prince of peace and Lord of life the Scripture saith in a word to sum up both what his Title doth require and what we may expect from it it saith Service and it saith Wages and both are set down in that to the Heb. 5. 9. He is the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him and both here are applied to him who does in earnest owne the relation to this Title and can say in truth My Lord the next part and first of the applying what it does require Service as it is the assuring of performance My Lord. And truly had we not entred any voluntary obligation and had we not contracted formally to take him for our Lord and not onely owned all that the relation does import to be due from us but engaged also to render it yet he is to us both 1. By an Original right he made us and there is not a workman in the world hath so much right to require the uses of his own handy-work to dispose of that same utensil which himself shap'd or fram'd as the Lord hath to require our service Did I perchance furnish the Lord with some materials for my self or did I find any piece towards my making contribute any least thing to my being then let me claim somthing for my share in my self and by the rule of fellowship with God have some use of my self to my self and as to that let him not be my Lord. But there is no such thing he called me into being out of the infinite resistance of vacuity and nothing He gave me body soul and every power and faculty and he upholds every motion and inclination of those faculties and gives me opportunities and objects for them There is no considerability of any thing within me is from my self but entirely owes its being from his store and comes from the Almighty and then what least imaginable pretence or plea can I have why every motion and inclination both of soul and body should not be bound to look towards his service and every action and thought acknowledge him My Lord. And 2. By purchased Title He did redeem us from the service of those cruel Lords Sin and the Devil whose service is unreasonable and unmanly slavery and whose wages is eternal ruin and he bought the right and title to our service
it would A setled tendency a resolv'd inclination to sin that presseth with its utmost agitation is that weight which though it may perchance be stop'd in its career yet it tends to the Abysse its center and will not rest but in that Pit that hath nor rest nor bottom the Heart in this case is as liable as it can be because here it hath done its worst and such a Will shall be imputed to its self And now I need not tell those who are still designing sin or mischief in the heart although it never dares come out of those recesses how far they are removed from the goodness of God to Israel A Father finds a way to prove such souls have larger doses of Gods Vengeance who when he had asserted that the soul does not die with the body and then was ask'd what it did in that long interval for sure it is not reasonable that it should be affected with any anticipations of the future Judgment because the business of the day of Judgment should be reserved to its own day without all prelibation of the sentence and the restitution of the Flesh is to be waited for that so both soul and body may go hand in hand in their Recompences as they did in their demerits joynt Partners in the Wages as they were in the Works To this he answers The Soul does not divide all its operations with the Body some things it acts alone and if there were no other cause it were most just the Soul should there receive without the Body the dues of that which here it did commit without the Body That 's for the former sort of sins those meerly of the Heart And for the latter sort the Soul is first engaged in the commission that does conceive the sin lays the design of compassing and does contrive and carry on the machination and then why should not that be first in Punishment which is the first in the Offence Go now and reckon that thy outward gross Transgressions are the only dangerous and guilty ones and slight thy sins of Heart but know that while thy flesh is sleeping in the quiet Grave at rest and ease thy Spirit then 's in Torments sor thy Fleshes sins and feels a far severer Worm than that which gnaws thy Body Poor Soul Eternity of Hell from Resurrection to For-ever is not enough to punish it all that while it must suffer with the Body but it must have an age of Vengeance besides particularly for it self to plague it for those things it could not execute and punish it for what it did not really enjoy only because it did allow it self to desire and contrive them and it must be tormented for those unsatisfied desires And though indeed desires where they are violent if they be not allayed by satisfaction are but so much agony yet do they merit and pull on them more these Torments shall be plagued and the soul suffer for its very passion even from Death to the last Judgment and 't is but just that being it usurp'd upon the pleasures and the sins of Flesh it should also seize on and take possession of the Vengeance appointed for those sins it should invade and should usurp their condemnation But why do I stand pressing aggravations against uncleanness of Heart in an Age when God knows Vice hath not so much modesty or fear to keep within those close and dark restraints Instead of that same Cleanness which the Text requires we may find Purity indeed of several sorts but 't is either pure Fraud or pure Impiety the one of these does make a strange expression very proper pure Corruption for so it is sincere and without mixture nothing but it self no spots of Clean to chequer it but all stain The other is pure white indeed but it is that of whited Sepulcres a Life as clean as Light a bright pure Conversation but it shines with that light onely which Satan does put on when he transforms himself into an Angel of Light and it is but a glory about a fiend But yet this shines however whereas others do stand Candidates of Vice and would be glorious in wickedness and that is such a splendor as if Satan should dress himself with the shine of his own flaming Brimstone and make himself a glory with the streamings of his Lake of Fire And yet thus is the World we do not onely see men serve some one peculiar vicious inclination and cherish their own wickedness but they make every Vice their own as if the Root of bitterness branch'd out in each sort of Impiety in them such fertile soyls of sin they are here insincerity were to be wish'd and where there is not cleanness that there were a Mask that there were the Religion of Hypocrisie We may remember God was good to Israel of old by Obligation and performance the one as great as he could enter the other great to Miracle and astonishment when after seventy years Captivity and Desolation he did rebuild a Temple where there was no Monument of its Ruines and raised a Nation and Government of which there was no Reliques And yet at last when the Religion of some turned into Faction of others into Prophaneness when the strictest Sect of them the Pharisees became most holy outwardly to have the better means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mischief those that were not of their Party and got a great opinion of Sanctity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as to be believed in whatsoever they did speak against the King or chief Priests and that so far as to be able openly to practise against both and raise Commotions They are Josephus's words of them and when another Sect the Zelots the most pernicious of all saith Bertram did commit Murders Sacriledg Prophanations and all kind of Villanies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with good Intentions saith the same Josephus and when those who did not separate into Sects but were the Church of Israel became lukewarm supine and negligent in their Profession yea and licentious and Prophane fit only to be joyned with Publicans in Christs expressions when sin grew generally Impudent when they did live as if they would be Scandalous as well as vicious as if they lov'd the guilt as much as the delights of sin and cared not to be wicked to themselves but must debauch as if they did enjoy the ruine of other persons sinning just as the Devil does who does not taste the sin but feasts upon the Sinners Condemnation Then did God execute a Vengeance whose prediction was fit to be mistaken for that of the Day of Judgment and whose event almost fulfill'd the terrors of that day I need not draw resemblances shew how Gods goodness to our Israel does equal that to them applying to our selves their Raptures how when the Lord turned the Captivity of our Sion we also were like them that dream surprized with Mercy Indeed as in a Dream Ideas
are not always well connected there is no chain or thred of fancies and the thoughts are not joynted regular and even but there are breaches and disorder in them still the Images of sleep being like Nebuchadnezzar's made of such things as do not well unite So there is something I confess like this in our condition for with our gold and silver our precious things that are restored there is Iron and Clay not onely meaner mixtures but such things as will not close or be soder'd but do incline to part asunder and would moulder and tend towards dissolution and just as in a Dream the composure of things is no so undisturb'd but that there is some confusedness neither our affections nor practices do perfectly cement but yet I hope it is no dream of mercy 't is not a Phantasm or an Apparition of Gods kindness but the Lord will be truly good to us Yet if we do proceed as Israel and equal it in provocations But I will make no parallels publique clamors do that too loud these do display the factions of iniquity among us and muster up the several parties of our Vices too and each man is as perfect in the guilts of all sides that he is not of as if their memories were the books that shall be opened at the Day of Judgment some men can point you out our Pharisees and Zelots others can shew you our prophane licentious Professors Lay and Clergy both and indeed we need not go far to seek any or all of these nor do we want our Sadduces Now if all this be true then as those were the signs of the Son of Man's coming to them in Judgment so we may fear they are his Harbingers to us If they be I am sure the only way to make his coming good to us is to prepare for it by cleansing from all filthiness and insincerity then though he come clothed with a Glory of flaming Vengeance yet will those streams of Fire find nothing to consume or wash away in us but through that flame the pure in heart shall see God so as that that sight shall be the Beatifick Vision Yea they shall see the Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living they shall see Jerusalem in prosperity all their life long and Peace here upon Israel and in his light hereafter in the Jerusalem that is above To the state of which glorious Light He bring us all who is the brightness of his Fathers Glory To whom be Glory and dominion for ever and ever Amen The Third SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Second Wednesday in Lent LEVIT XVI 31. Ye shall Afflict your Souls by a Statute for ever THE words are one Single Precept concerning one part of the Celebration of a Day I shall not take the Precept asunder into parts for it hath none but shall frame my Discourse to answer three Enquiries that naturally offer themselves to be consider'd from these words And they are 1. What the Importance of the thing commanded is What is required in this Injunction Ye shall afflict your Souls 2. What Usefulness and Efficacy this Duty had upon that time in which it was prescribed what the Afflicting of the Soul contributed to the work of that Day that it should be made so indispensable an ingredient of its performances tied to it by a Statute for ever 3. Whether that for ever do reach us which is the Application and brings all home to us First What the Import of the thing commanded the Afflicting of the Soul is The Arab. and Targum of Jerusalem Translate it Fasting yea and a Learned Rabbine says that wheresoever these two words are put together that is meant And indeed they are often joyned in Scripture to express it Psalm XXXV 13. I afflicted my Soul with Fasting And the Prophet Isaiah speaking of this Day in my Text says Is it such a Fast that I have chosen a day for a man to afflict his Soul Isa. lviii 5. Somewhat a strange expression it is for Fasting does afflict the Body properly and yet we find the like too in the other Extream We read of pampering the Soul Psalm lxxviii 18. They required 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meat for their Souls not to supply the Hunger of their Body that they had before but to indulge the Lusts of their mind they did not want for food but variety Festival diet and a Table furnish'd they would have and this luxuriancy and wantonness of Meat the Scripture calls meat for the Soul Such as God says in other places the Soul lusteth after Indeed forc'd meats and things that please meerly by being rare and dear or by being extravagant these do not feed the Appetite but Opinion and the Mind it is the Soul that only hungers after these Thus when I look after Wine in the glass and make my Eye a Critique of its accidents and by the mode and fashion of it teach it to please or displease my judgment I do not thirst after the cool moysture of it but the sparkling flame and do not drink the Wine but the flavour and colour and this is all but Notion Now certainly these are not proper objects for our Appetites meat for the Body says the Scripture and it is the Stomach and not the Imagination that is hungry nor is it Fancy or the Soul that thirsts but 't is the Palate so that these are unnatural and monstrous satisfactions And yet to bring mens selves to this is one of the great masteries of Wit and Art to force themselves to find a relish in these things and then contrive them is a piece of Skill which the advantages of parts and fortune are desireable mostly as they are useful to And a well studied Epicure one expert in the mysteries of Eating is a singularly qualified and most grateful Person It were in vain to ask what else such men can be good for that being their Profession they are out at most other things Indeed the Soul that dwells in Dishes and is stew'd in its own Luxuries grows loose and does dissolve its sinews melt all its firmness of mind forsakes it the man is strong for nothing but for Lusts his faculties are choak'd and stifled they stagnate and are mir'd within him and there corrupt and putrefie And then what Cranes will force out thence and wind up such a Soul into the practices and expectations of Piety will make it mind and entertain the hopes and Duties of Religion what macerations what Chymistry will defecate a Spirit so incarnated and rectifie it into such a fineness as befits that state where all their blessedness have no sensual relish but are sublimed into Divine and purely Spiritual Lord God! that thou shouldst shed a rational Angelick Soul into us a thing next to the Being of thy Self to animate only the Organs of Intemperance and Gluttony and their appendant lusts Only inspire us how to be but more sagacious indeed but more luxurious
the Land again and embowel it self in Church and State these call for it as loud as the hatangueing Prayers of Seditious Men and the Lord knows there are too many hands that would unsheath it if God do not interpose to hinder and well we have deserv'd he should But if we would endeavour to engage him by Repentance that will require the Afflicting of the Soul by some severities Do not mistake your selves Repentance as it cannot be wrought out amidst our courses that were contradiction to return and yet go on so also it will not be wrought out amidst the Comforts as we call the jollities of life Tertullian is very pleasant with those who did dislike that in their Penitencies they were by the Church prescrib'd to put off Mirth and put on Sackcloth and take Ashes for Bread Come says he reach that Bodkin there to braid my Hair and help me now to practise all those Arts that are in Mode to attire it give me the washes of that Glass the blushes of that Paper the foyles which that Box hath to beautifie and dress my Cheeks come and set out and dress my Table too let me have Fowl with costly forc'd and not a natural Fat or let me have cramb'd Fish and cram my Dishes also get me chearful Wine too and if any one ask why I do thus indulge my self Why I will tell him I have sin'd against my God and am in danger of Perdition and therefore I am in great trouble I macerate do you not see the signs of it and excruciate my self I take these fearful careful ways that I may reconcile God to me whom I have offended Alas to humble ones self thus in fulness and to afflict the Soul in chearful plenties is such a thing as none but he that sinks under the surfeit of those Plenties understands I 'm sure the Lord when he required his People to repent required them then to discipline and use severities upon themselves they were to fast or dye God took the execution for whatsoever Soul it be that shall not be Afflicted that same day shall be cut off from among his People Levit. xxiii 29. Even cut off by God himself And I do verily persuade my self that one great cause why men that have sometimes thought to reform their lives and do resolve against their Courses yet repent of their Repentance their resolutions untwist and become frail as threds of Cobweb the first assault of a temptation does break through them is they do not use mortifications to work their aversations high and strong against their sins and fix their resolutions The universal sense of the whole Primitive Church gives me confidence in this persuasion who for that very reason in their penitential Excommunications did inflict such severities as 't is almost incredible that Christians would submit to yet they beg'd to be censur'd into and those had S. Paul for their precedent But now Repentance are but dislikes little short unkindnesses at our sins and wouldings to do better On some moving occasion if Gods Hand or his Spirit lash it may be Tears will gush out of the Wound and we in angry sadness do intent against our Vices but when that fit is over and the Flesh by indulgences prepared to make or answer a temptation we fall again and then it may be shake the head and curse the sin but yet again commit it if the invitation be fair And then are very sorry account our selves unhappy who lie under such a violent infirmity but act it still Now if we consider how it comes to pass that we go round like men inchanted in a Circle of Repenting and of Sinning we shall find it is for want of Discipline upon our selves for had we strove to make our humiliations more low and full of pungent sorrow the Soul would start and fly at the first glance of that which cost it so much anguish but who would fear to act that sin which puts him to so little trouble to repent of as a sad thought a sigh a wish and a loose purpose thin intentions and that 's all Do not complain of the Infirmity of the Flesh for this and say thou wouldst live Spiritually but the frailty of thy sensual part betrays thee its stings and incitations make thee start from duty and goad and force thee into actions which otherwise thou neither shouldst or wouldst commit 'T is thou thy self that arm'st thy Flesh with all its stings thou givest it strengths whereby it does subdue the Spirit thou waterest thy desires with Wines thou feedest them with strong meat and teachest them to crave thou cocker'st them with thy indulgence and thou dost treat Temptations to sin dost invite wickedness and nourish the occasions of Ruin and then it is no wonder if thy resolutions be not strong enough there is no way but by Austerities to mortifie all inclinations that stir against the Spirit and by denying satisfactions to thy Appetite to calm and moderate thy affections to every thing below and then Temptations will have neither Aid nor Avenue But Secondly You shall Afflict your Souls cannot be meant only that ye shall Afflict your Bodies the Spirit also must be troubled and we must rent the Heart as well as Garments that is indeed a Sacrifice fit for a Propitiation day for it is such a one as God will not despise Psal. li. 17. and without which all others are but vain Oblations God may call fasting the Afflicting of the Soul because it is the most appropriate and natural means to work it but when he calls it so he does intend it should produce it Austerities are humilificandi hominis disciplina as Tertul. says Humiliation Discipline but yet they have not always that effect The Pharisee that fasted twice a week did not mortifie at all but his Humiliation made him lofty his emptiness filled him with wind and puft him up and the Publican was more justified than he And late experiences have taught us that Fasting does not always humble when it did gape for Sovereignty and did afflict then into Power only when there attended it a sacra fames an hunger after Holy things and such as all the relicts of old Sacriledg could not allay but it devoured Church and State and yet crav'd still And the throat of these fasting men was an open Sepulchre indeed open to bury and that could no more be satisfied than the Grave But 't is not only these demure impieties and those that are devout in wickedness and act it in Religion and the Fear of God I have to speak against But in the general If Fasting do not humble and those severities that wear the Flesh break not the heart too and make it contrite then they are lost upon us and do not profit us All these strictnesses of bodily and outward exercise as S. Paul calls it are acts of discipline prescribed to make the Sorrows of Repentance more severe and operative and so to
God alone for thus expiation of sins was wrought Even so to make that expiation mine besides reliance on it I must transcribe the Copy of the Sufferings of that Son transplant the Garden of Gethsemane into my breast If his Soul be sorrowful even unto Death my Soul must be afflicted too Humiliations must prostrate me upon my face to deprecate that Fire and Brimstone burning Tempest that is the portion of the Sinners Cup saith David O my Father let this Cup pass from me The lustful Feavers of my blood must excern themselves in cold sweat of fear and grief in Agonies of Penitence and my excessive draughts not onely make me to cry out I thirst but give me Vinegar and Gall to drink sorrow as bitter as my riotous egestions have been my Oaths that have struck through the Name of God must pierce my Soul with grief as pungent as his Thorns and Nails In a word I must so afflict my Soul as to crucifie the body of sin and nail it to his Cross. And this is that which in its own proportion was required of the Jews this Day here in the Text to the work of which Day how the Afflicting of the Soul in both the given senses does contribute was my Second and the next Enquiry Secondly What this Day was the Verse before the Text informs us it was their Day of Expiation or Atonement Now that the Jews esteem Fasting and Humiliation expiatory Sacrifices appears from a Form of Prayer which even yet they use on such a day where he that fasted says O Lord the Governour of all the World I have now finished my Fast before thee thou knowest that when we had a Temple standing the man that sinned was bound to expiate it by a Sacrifice the Blood of which was poured out and the Altar consumed the Fat to make amends for his offence but now by reason of our many wickednesses we have neither a Temple Altar or Priest to make Atonement for us I beseech thee therefore O Lord my God the God of my Fathers to accept of that little portion of my own Flesh and Blood which this days Fasting hath torn from me in lieu of a Sin-offering and be thou reconciled unto me for thy mercies sake Thus when he cannot give a Lamb for his Transgression he gives some of himself he offers Hunger for Shewbread and Thirst for a Drink-offering he consecrates a Meal instead of a Beast and sheds a sower fasting sigh for Incense and this he hopes God will accept as Sacrifice And truly the Text says no day of Expiation could be kept without it Nor does the Scripture want great instances of its effect towards Atonement of Gods wrath How when Judgment was given on a Nation or Person and Execution going out against them yet this revers'd the Sentence Ahab is a great proof of this 1 King xxi 27. And it came to pass when Ahab heard those words that he rent his Clothes and put Sackcloth upon his flesh and Fasted and lay in Sackcloth and went softly And the word of the Lord came unto Elijah the Tishbite saying Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days On Fasting-day secured a Life the weaknesses it brought upon the body upheld it against all Gods threats Vengeance pronounc'd and coming out against him falls to ground if Ahab humble and afflict his Soul Gods stretch'd out Arm will not strike Sackcloth nor wound through Fasting Garments One fit of it removes his Judgments a whole Age and had it been sincere and persevering how had it wip'd them out to everlastingness Ninive is another instance of the practice and success of this even among the Heathens Nor should it seem to have less Efficacy among Christians The Primitive Fathers call these severities Satisfaction for sin and Compensations the Price with which they are bought off the things that cover them and blot them out and which Propitiate and appease God for them not in their sense who force up these Expressions to a strange height of meaning and yet have quite beat down the Practice as to the publique wholesom use of them out of the Church But though these sayings assign not the Power and just Efficacy of that discipline in it self yet they do the acceptance and effect of it by virtue of Christs Satisfaction A Fainting Body cannot bear indeed the weight of our iniquities nor will lowest prostrations in the dust bury them in the dust or Tears alone blot out our Guilt but Christ having done that which is effectual to all this and requiring no more of thee to make that thine as he does every where most solemnly avow but faithful humbling of thy self in an afflictive sorrow for what 's past and so to mortifie as to work out Repentance the doing this is doing what he does require and consequently will accept These satisfie the Command and therefore God though not by a condignity of performance yet as Conditions which his Covenant of Grace hath set us which when they are fulfilled then God is satisfied thy sins are expiated and thou art pardoned And so in this lower sense these are thy Satisfactions with which God is well pleased And thus these self Afflictions of the Sinner supply Gods Indignation and divert it They leave no place nor business for it and by these short severities upon himself he does make void he does expunge the Sentence of eternal Torments saith Tertullian As thou becomest severe against thy self so will the Lord abate of his severities and he will spare and he will pity thee in that he sees thou wilt not spare thy self How can he choose but be appeased towards thee when he shall see thee executing his Sentence even upon thy own self and punishing his Enemies although they be thy Members so that by this means thou dost censure thy self into Gods Absolutions afflict thy self into his Pardons and dost condemn thy self into eternal Life Our Church says the same thing That in the Primitive Church there was a Godly Discipline that at the beginning of Lent such Persons as were notorious Sinners were put to open Pennance and punished in this World that their Souls might be saved in the Day of the Lord and she does wish if her wishes be of any force and value when her Orders and Constitutions are not that Discipline could be restored But this I shall not press if all those whom the Primitive Church Condemned or S. Paul sentenced were so used if every Schismatick that lies tearing himself and others off from the Lords Body were rejected and if the Fornicator that joyns himself to his unclean Accomplice were disjoined from Christ and not suffered to make his members be the members of an Harlot if every scandalous debauching Offender that lies corrupting Christs Body spreading Contagion thrusting the Gangreen forward were cut off and these and all
indulg'd license makes them too big and heady to be brought under discipline And is 't not so with us Among many of those that stay within the Church I know not whether I do well to say so when of these I mean there is little other Evidence of their doing so but this that they will swear and drink of the Churches side blessed Sons of a demolished Church who think to raise their Mother a Temple by throwing stones at her by reason of the late overthrow of Government and discipline and the consequent licences Vice hath been so nurst up not only by an universal barefac'd uncorrected practice but by principles of liberty that can dispute down all Ecclesiastical restraints and have set up the Religion of License that now sin is grown so outragious as to be too strong for discipline nay rather than it should be set up 't is to be feared they would endeavour to reverse all in the Church and enterprise as much in their vices quarrel as others have done for mistaken Religion And indeed to what purpose were the Censures whose first and medicinal effect is shame amongst men where 't is in very many instances the only shameful thing not to be vitious where men stand candidates for the reputation of glorious sinners take to themselves sins they have not committed that are not theirs and usurp Vice sins and damnations hypocrites What work is here for discipline But this state wants not precedents the censures of the Church were not only lay'd aside in the Vastations of the Arian heresie and persecution when the weapons of the Churches warfare were too weak to make defence against all their cruelties and impieties and before that in Diocletian's days against the Lapsi But we find also that Saint Paul is forc'd to break out only in a passionate wish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I would they were even cut off that trouble you cut off by excommunication he means Gal. 5. 12. When he saw the ill humours were too spreading and too tough also Sedition and Sehisme wide and obstinate so that neither his authority could reach nor his methods cure but were more likely to exasperate them Then he does excommunicate them only in desire And again 2 Cor. 10. 6. And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfill'd It becomes therefore every one that hath good Will for Sion to labour to fulfill his own obedience that so the Church may be empower'd to use Christ's Method for reforming of the rest And thet that will not do so must know they shall not only answer for their sins but for refusing to be sav'd from them that they resist all medicine as men resolv'd that nothing shall be done towards their Cure as men that rather choose to perish and prefer destruction And for the seasons and degrees of putting this work into Execution Wisdom must be implor'd from that Spirit of Wisdom that calls unto this work The last Part Whereunto I have called them The Nature of the calling of the Holy Ghost is a Subject that would bear a full discourse But waving those pretensions which Necessity and inward incitation do make to be the Calls of the Holy Ghost I shall positively set down that the call of God and of the Holy Ghost to any Work or Office for I enquire not of his calling to a privilege or state of favour is his giving abilities and gifts qualifying for that Work or Office The call immediate when the gifts were so but mediate and ordinary when the abilities are given in his blessing on our ordinary labours 'T is so in every sort of things Exod. 31. 2. See I have call'd Bezaleel and I have fill'd him with the Spirit of God in Wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of Workmanship to devise cunning works and to work in all manner of Workmanship and behold I have given him Aholiab and in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put Wisdom that they may make all that I have commanded thee And he repeats the same again Chap. 35. 30. adding that he hath put in his heart that he may teach both he and Aholiab so that giving this skill to work and teach is nam'd Gods calling So in another case the Lord does say of Cyrus I have call'd him Esay 48. 15. which he explains in the 49. I have holden him by my right hand to subdue Nations before him to loose the loyns of Kings I have girded him So when Isaiah saith the Lord hath call'd me from the Womb or rather says that of our Saviour Isa. 49. 1. he tells you how ver 5. he form'd me and prepared me from the Womb to be his servant to bring Jacob to him And throughout the New Testament as his Call to a privilege is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his grace in allowing such a state of favour so his calls to a Work are his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his gifts enabling for it The Gifts of these Apostles by which they were enabled for their Office and which made up their call are set down Those of Barnabas in the fore-cited 11 Act. He was a good man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost and Paul's call was a little Extraordinary If we look into times we shall find reason to believe those Revelations in 2 Cor. 12. were given to Paul a little before this consecration of him in the Text. That Epistle was writ saith Baronius in the second year of Nero and this separation was in the second of Claudius as may be gathered also in some measure from the famine mention'd in the 28th verse of the 11th chap. betwixt these two were fourteen years now saith Saint Paul when he wrote that he had his revelation somewhat above 14. years before a little therefore before this solemnity Here was a call indeed call'd up to the third heaven to receive instructions for his Office and for ought he did know call'd out of his own body too that he might be the fitter for it whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knows v. 2. and that again v. 3. They whom Gods Spirit qualifies for Consecration to separate to these diviner Offices may be stil'd Angels well when they are call'd from all regards or notices of any body that belongs to them their gifts and graces set them above the consideration of flesh In the entertainment of these qualifications the Soul is swallowed up so that it cannot take cognizance whether it have a body of its own and is not sensible of that deer partner of it self it is so onely sensible of this Employment 'T is not for an Apostle or for his Successor to think of things below with much complacency When these have all their uses all their glories on they but make pomp to dress the body which an Apostle does not design for nor knows whether he be concern'd at all
would abide that touchstone and they therefore had no surer more compendious way for its security then to prevent such trial taking care men should not know what was or what was not in Scripture And it is not possible for me to give account why in their catechising they leave out all that part of the commandments Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image c. but this only that they dare not let the laity compare their doctrine and their practice with that Scripture But tho it is possible they might conceive some danger if the whole Scripture should be expos'd yet in those portions which the Church it self chose out for her own offices the little Lessons and Epistles and Gospels those sure one would think were safe no not their Psalter Breviary nor their Hours of the Blessed Virgin must they have translated in their own tongue as that Council did determin And truly when the Roman Missal was turn'd lately into French and had bin allow'd to be so by the general Assembly of the Clergy in the year 1650. and when it was don it had the usual approbation of the Doctors and some Bishops and then was printed at Paris with the license of the Vicars general of their Archbishop Yet another general Assembly of the Clergy the year 1660 whereat there were 36 Bishops upon pain of excommunication forbid any one to read it and condemn not only that present traduction but the thing in general as poysonous in an Encyclical Epistle to all the Prelates of the Kingdom and in another they say of him that did translate it and the Vicars general that did defend him in it that by doing so they did take arms against the Church attaquing their own Mother namely by that version at the Altar in that sanctuary that closet of her spouses mysteries to prostitute them and in another Epistle they beseech his Holiness Pope Alexander 7th to damn it not in France alone but the whole Church which he then did by his Bull for ever interdicting that or any other Version of that book forbidding all to read or keep it on severest pains commanding any one that had it to deliver it immediatly to the Inquisitor or Ordinary that it might be burnt forthwith Now thus whatever it be otherwise the Mass is certainly a sacrifice when 't is made a burnt offering to appease his Holiness's indignation when that verâ— Memorial of Christs passion again suffers and their sacred offices are martyr'd To see the difference of times 't was heretofore a Pagan Dioclesian a strange prodigy of cruelty who by his edict did command all Christians to deliver up their Bibles or their bodies to be burnt 'T was here his Holiness Christs Vicar who by his Bull orders all to give up theirs that is all of it that they will allow them and their prayers also that they may be forthwith burnt or themselves to be excommunicated that is their souls to be devoted to eternal flames And whereas then those only that did give theirs up were excommunicate all Christians shun'd them as they would the plague and multitudes whole regions rather gave themselves up to the fire to preserve their Bibles now those only that have none or that deliver up theirs are the true obedient sons of that Church and the thorough Catholics I know men plead great danger in that book it is represented as the source of monstrous doctrines and rebellions I will not say these men are bold that take upon them to be wiser then Almighty God and to see dangers he foresaw not and to prevent them by such methods as thwart his appointments but I will say that those who talk thus certainly despise their hearers as if we knew not Heresies were hatcht by those that understood the Bible untranslated and as if we never heard there were rebellions among them that were forbid to read the Bible For if there were a Covenant among them that had it in their own tongue so there was an Holy League amongst those men that were deni'd it While those that had the guidance of the subjects conscience were themselves subject to a forreign power as all Priests of that communion are How many Kings and Emperors have there bin that did keep the Scriptures from their people but yet could not keep their people from sedition nor themselves from ruine by it In fine when God himself for his own people caus'd his Scripture to be written in their own tongue to be weekly read in public too and day and night in private by the people and when the Apostles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost indited Scripture for the world they did it in the language that was then most vulgar to the world what God and the Holy Spirit thus appointed as the fittest means for the Salvation of the world to define not expedient as the Holy Fathers of Trent did looks like blasphemy against God and the Holy Spirit But blasphemies of this kind are not to be wondr'd at from that kind of men that call the Scripture a dumb judg a black Gospel inken Divinity written not that they should be the rule of our faith and Religion but that they should be regulated by submitted to our faith that the autority of the Church hath given canonical autority to Scriptures and those the chief which otherwise they had not neither from themselves nor from their authors and that if the Scriptures were not sustain'd by the autority of the Church they would be of no more value then Aesops fables And lastly that the people are permitted to read the Bible was the invention of the Devil But to leave the controversy and speak to the advantages which may be had from early institution in the Scripture 't is so evident that I need not observe how 't is for want of principles imprest and wrought into the mind in Childhood that our youth is so licentious And 't is not possible it can be otherwise when they have nothing to oppose to constitution when 't is growing and to all the temtations both of objects and example no strict sense of duty planted in them no such notions as would make resistance to the risings of their inclination and seducements of ill company and they therefore follow and indulge to all of them And in Gods name why do parents give their Children up to God in their first infancy deliver him so early a possession of them as if they would have Religion to take seizure on them strait as if by their baptizing them so soon they meant to consecrate their whole lives to Gods service make them his as soon as they were theirs as if they had bin given them meerly for Gods uses And they therefore enter them into a vow of Religion almost as soon as they have them why all this if accordingly they do not season and prepare
the conscience is past feeling then it is past cure The onely method is prevention here the onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to keep the conscience tender then it will be sensible of every the least touch of guilt check at whatever we shall do amiss Conscience is the eie of the soul now tenderness is a disposition very proper to the eie it is the tenderest part of the whole body and if the conscience be right that is so of the soul the smallest spill or mote is restless agony to the eie it never leaves to force out tears both to bewaile the torment and to wash away the cause I am sure our Savior calls a sin of the least size or guilt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 7. 3. things that should make the conscience as restless fret into lamentings prick passages for repenting sorrow The conscience of Converts always does so Acts 2. 37. When they heard this they were pricked in heart and indeed this is the necessary constitution of Soul for them that ever hope to have their conversation holy he whose eie is not tender 't is not useful if it be not sensible of spills that get into it it cannot be sensible of objects such a callum as will make it not feel will make it not see and when it cannot perceive pain then it cannot direct or light and so the conscience if it feel no grievance from thy vices it will never boggle at them but when it is tender as the eie then it will rowl and weep if any thing disturb it 't will be restless till it free it self Let other Souls be tickled when they feel the pleasures of a sin but Lord let my heart smite me then the stroke and smart may make me fly the cause Let sin that and cruel Serpent sting stab wound me thus for then it will make outlets for its putrifaction it will draw tears to cleanse me from it self and sure after the bloud of Christ there is no other laver to wash away the foulness of my sin but that which gushes from those wounds of spirit nothing else will quench the power of it This tender conscience will preserve the whole conversation pure if its respects be universal if its cares reach to the whole latitude of its object if it be void of offence both towards God and towards man which shews the extent of its obligation and is my next consideration of which in a few words Void of offence towards God and towards men a conversation unblamable in all things that relate to God or man both these must be join'd the Honesty without the Godliness is but Heathen Morality and the Godliness without honesty but Pharisaical Hypocrisy 'T is just that which our Savior describes and sentences Matt. 23. 14. Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for ye devour widows houses and for a pretence make long praiers therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation as if their long and earnest praiers pull'd down nothing else but woes and condemnation on them and their more religion gain'd them but more hell The one of these for all his honesty if he have not piety he is without God in this world nor shall have any thing of his heaven in the other whose life did not look thitherwards but aim'd no further than a conversation that was regular betwixt man and man The other the dishonest man notwithstanding his Godliness shall be without God in the world to come for sure he is not fit to live with God in that who is not fit to live with man in this who will not behave himself honestly must not think he can live religiously nor can that help him towards Gods rewards that does but help him to the greater condemnation So that they must be join'd and our conscience must be void of offence towards God and towards men and that not onely as the objects of our duty but the rules That Gods Law is the rule of conscience that we are bound to do what he commands I think I need not prove in this I have onely to wish our practice were as orthodox as our opinions But that man can oblige the conscience that laws however just of our rightful Governors are a part of this rule and we are bound in conscience to observe what they would have us do many men doubt there bene qui latuit bene vixit a close offender does not sin and if they come not under the lash of the Law they think the conscience hath no whip for these offences yet Scripture is express Rom. 13. 5. Wherefore you must needs be subject not onely for wrath but also for conscience sake again 1 Pet. 2. 13 15. submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake for so is the will of God I do not here set down that humane Laws oblige the conscience immediatly it is enough for me they do it by Gods constitution that what we do so is for his sake and 't is his will that we should do it and then he that does not obey he breaks the will of God and so does that which a good conscience must needs tell a man he must not do I know some have found out a subterfuge that onely passive obedience is required in conscience not active and tho this interpretation would secure the Magistrate for men must not rebel against that rod which they are bound to submit to yet 1. 'T is strange a man should not be bound in conscience to obey the Law yet should be bound in conscience to suffer for the not obeying it What reason for this difference Sure if either 't is most reasonable to escape the punishment if he can But 2. What sense will they make St Paul speak * wherefore ye must needs be subject not onely for wrath if wrath mean punishment as it certainly does and be subject signify submit not actively but submit to punishment as they will have it then it means therefore a man must submit to punishment not onely for punishment or for fear of being punished but also because he is bound in conscience to bear the punishment now 't is indeed impossible that a man ought and is necessitated to submit to the penalty of the Law for fear of the penalty of the Law be bound to suffer a thing for fear of suffering that very thing or that he may escape that very suffering which he is bound in conscience too to suffer These are contradictions But of the active obedience the sense is plain we must obey their just Laws not onely that we may avoid their punishments which we shall suffer if we obey not but because we are bound in conscience to obey All the Apostles instances also being of active obedience and the whole reasoning of the place evincing it might serve for further evidence but this shall suffice me for proof and St Paul truly seems to take in these here in the text for amongst several
bliss which to conceive is to be as God and to enjoy is to be one with him And O thou Blessed Jesu the eternal Lord of all those comforts be favourable unto us thy servants that turn to thee with weeping and with mourning that do with hearty bewailing for our hardness desire thee to teach our souls with some compunction for those iniquities that did put thee to death and would ruin us to break our rocky hearts that they may stream out tears for those our sins which shed thy bloud and would cast us into eternal wailings and as thou hast humbled us into the dust and prostrated our very souls unto the ground to grant unto us to sit down in that dust and to bewail our own demerits which our very ruin can neither equal nor amend O suffer us not to be so obdurate as to prove unmoveable by all thy pressures insensible of our own miseries and sufferings and such as amidst the pains of sin do still retain the malice and the obstinacy and then at last by these thy methods and our greifs recover us from the follies of our lives close our eyes and withdraw our affections from the temting lightnesses and vanities of our conversations and fix our thoughts and appetites upon thy serious comforts those heavenly refreshments after so much sadness that we being reckon'd amongst them whom thou dost chasten put into the number of thy mourners whose share of sorrows are dispenc't in this life may have title to the inheritance of Sons the joys of blessedness and the portion of eternal consolations in the land of everlasting pleasures with thee the Lamb that wert slain and art therefore worthy to receive all honor power praise might majesty and dominion with the Father and the Holy Ghost now and for evermore SERMON VII OF THE CLEANSING POWER Of Christian HOPE 1 John 3. 3. Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself as he is pure HOPE is of all others the most active passion setting all the rest of them and the whole man on work for who would ever do or desire any thing if he did not hope for some good by it It is this hope alone that employs all the men and all the professions of the world it is the wings of the Desires and Actions carrying them thro the greatest difficulties with courage and alacrity with Confidence and an unwearied Constancy Ad bonas spes pertinax animus est Never will a man leave so long as he does hope and of all hopes that of the Christian should be the most active because it aims at the highest good in comparison of which all other good things are but shadows For what are the pleasures of earth to the things of God not worthy to be the expressions no nor the foils of them Now we see the greater the hopes the more active men are in the pursuit of them for who is there that will take so much pains for a Cottage as for a Crown And is it not then a wonder that of all Hopes yet this Hope of Heaven should be the least effectual in the minds of men and of all pleasures those of God should least invite and least imploy us For what one is there that does not with more eager and constant industry pursue the hopes of profit or the hopes of pleasure than he does the hopes of Immortality and of Blessedness How few are there that do not spend more time and more endeavors take more and longer pains in their Sports than in their Religion which could not certainly be if they had not surer and greater hopes of joy from their sports than from Heaven for the greater hope would certainly set them the more on work No Heaven is a thing of no tast carries no profit no pleasure in the meaning of it for if it did it would employ them in the gaining of it and every one that had this hope would purify himself as he is pure Matth. 5. 8. If the inheritance of the Kingdom of God were as some were upon earth entail'd so that do they what they will they could not be put by it there were then some reason not to wonder wherefore we see men live in the broad way to Hell and yet then hope to come to Heaven and certainly nothing but such a perswasion as that can possibly lull men into such a wretchless security as they are possest with in a thing of this eternal consequence For if we should examin them the most sinful wretch of them all hath hopes to be sav'd yea he would not be able to stand under the burden and the horror of his own killing thoughts if he should but once despair of that so that hope he will and yet if he believe one jot of Scripture it is impossible for him to hope it For that bids him not be deceiv'd neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor theeves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God So that he dares not not hope and yet if he do but ask himself he knows he cannot hope and what then makes him do it Certainly the opinion that such and such the inheritance is entail'd upon and be they what they will they shall have Heaven But alas they are mistaken in the nature of the inheritance we may read of many that were cast off and the Heir must be a servant as long as he is a child if he do not obey no hopes of his arriving at his inheritance when he is come to age St John here will dash all those vain hopes and will tell them as they cannot justly hope for none such as they can be possest of that inheritance and therefore 't is to no purpose for them to hope it So also that they do not indeed hope for if they did ever expect to arrive at Heaven they would not run on in a course that leads a clean contrary way The Apostle here propounds five Arguments to exhort them to the study of Piety to press after Holiness and to leave off their courses of sin I shall name them backwards First in the tenth verse if we be Christians we not onely will not but cannot sin Yea secondly we are indeed Children of the Devil if we do v. 8. Neither thirdly have we any Communion with Christ possibly or interest in his Righteousness v. 6 7. Nay fourthly they destroy the very end of Christ's coming into the world v. 5. Lastly in the front of all these neither can they hope to enjoy any of those glorious promises that God hath made to his Children those of giving them glory and immortality For he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself as he is pure In the handling of these words I shall shew you what it is to purify himself Secondly what kind of purity he is to strive after as he is pure Thirdly what the
cannot hope yet will in despite of that knowledge hope and do notwithstanding all think to come to Heaven Certainly while a man goes on to sin to hope for mercy is presumtion in him and so another sin added to the rest yea 't is a disbelieving of Gods threatning an affronting him in his veracity an imputing falsehood to his menaces and a putting himself almost out of the possibility of repenting For he that do's hope for Salvation in the condition he is in hath no temtation at all to change his condition but is likely to go on confidently and hopingly to eternal perdition it were a mercy to such a person to be struck into despair that he may be taught the wretchedness of his condition and hurried out it in which as long as he does hope there 's no reason to expect that he should leave it but by becoming hopeless in it may be frighted from it and the gates of hell is the onely probable means to let that man into the way of heaven O the Christians Hope it is the hope of righteousness Gal. 5. 5. Nothing else but holiness and righteousness can give a man ground for it And certainly my Brethren it is such a Hope as would countervail the trouble and the pains of reforming our selves What will not a man undertake which he can but hope to go thro and is assur'd of a large recompence for doing and surely Heaven is worth the endeavouring after and that blessed Hope worth purifying our selves for For it was worth the death of the Son of God Christ was content to be crucified to compass it and cannot we be content to purify our selves for it Will you see what hope can perswade a man to do See Abraham to whom God promis'd onely the Land of Canaan and that not to be enjoied by himself nor by his Son but onely by the Posterity of Isaac his Son and his Promises were further off than Heaven yet after that before Isaac had any Posterity when he was but a child God commands him to go and sacrifice his Isaac and go to cut off all hopes of ever enjoying it yet against hope he believed in hope saith St Paul and he that had receiv'd the promises of God offer'd up his onely begotten Son Heb. 11. 17. i. e. having entertain'd and embrac'd the promise of a numerous seed and people that should spring from him and having no other Son but this from whom they should spring nor possibility in nature nor promise above nature that he should have any more children but a plain affirmation that this People to whom the Promises belong'd should come from Isaac yet having once truly hop'd that God would perform his promise he absolutely obei'd that command of Gods resolving to kill the Son on whom all those Promises depended And now my Brethren there is no such puzles in our Hope nor no such hard thing requir'd of us no Sons to be sacrific'd but onely a few vices no doubtful perplext promise of a Canaan onely but plain assured Heaven and then had we but the least degree of his hope as we have infinitely greater reason how would we sacrifice any thing to Christs command how would we offer up a lust and think a sin a good exchange for the hopes of Heaven and he that had this hope would certainly purify himself as he is pure It is but now the Church hath celebrated the Ascension of our Lord Christ and the great Proposal of the Angels Acts 1. 11. to all those Disciples that beheld him going up to Heaven and gaz'd after him so wishly was that they should see him come again Now the particular comfort of that coming so again is when he shall appear we shall be like him 1 John 3. 2. and the hopes of being so St John thought a sufficient motive to set every man on purifying and that himself for this lustration cannot be perform'd by Proxy and be remitted to another for even our Saviors Righteousness will not be imputed unto those who will have none besides he redeems and saves none but them whom he has sav'd from their sins Reveal O Blessed God some of thy Glory which thou hast prepar'd for them that love thee some of that blessed Hope of a Christian calling to our hearts that it may stir our desires and longings and heat them into hopes and that we having the hopes of seeing thee may purify and may escape that day of fire which shall melt the Heavens and purge those glorious bodies which are not pure in thy sight Behold O God we tremble with horror of thy dreadful Judgment The Angels are not clean in thy sight and the Seraphims cover their faces what then shall become of us vile filthy Sinners whose daily impurities have so defil'd both our souls and bodies that we are but one mass and heap of uncleaness Blessed God we know that as long as we continue such we cannot hope to see thee in mercy we know that if we repent not we shall all perish we know that if we live after the Flesh we shall die eternally we know that neither fornicators c. shall have any inheritance O let this knowledg apply it self to our hearts and consciences that the terrors of it may fright us from the vain hopes that we do cherish of being happy notwithstanding we go on in our sinful courses for alas those hopes will perish with us and that those terrors may so work on us to set upon amendment Cleanse and wash we pray thee all our impurities in the bloud of thy Son bury them in his grave never to rise hereafter and melt our hearts into repentant tears that so our hearts may become purer O thou that didst cleanse us with thy bloud baptize us with thy Holy Spirit and with fire that it may purge out our dross and filthiness and be an earnest to us of that glorious Purity which we shall have in Heaven seeing thee as thou art and becoming like thee where we shall sin no more but for ever serve and praise thee SERMON VIII OF THE HIDING PLACE From Indignation Isaiah 26. 20. Come my people enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment until the Indignation be overpast UPON the Eve as it were and the Vigils to the day of Indignation when we cannot but look upon it as ready to be pour'd out on us in a full stream when we see destruction make close approches to us work round about us and punishment like our sin lies at the very door ready either to enter in upon us or seize us if we offer to come out to offer at a way to prevent all this that should discover to you a safe retreat from those threats that pursue this Nation in general open a shelter from the present storm cannot chuse but be seasonable yet such a thing the Text do's venture at
the comfort died as soon as the smile the very memorial of them is perisht and there is nothing of them left alive but that now all is don I am never the better for them But the comforts of my devouter hours shall never die but when I go to die my self will be like life and immortality to me O the strange acquiescencies of soul in the Consideration the few hours that a man hath spent piously how they will calm death assist in agonies and releive from pains how such a Soul anticipates his Heaven The truth is to such an one death is welcom and life tho it have on it the shadow of death is full of comfort For when all the world about is Egypt a devout man tho he have but his chamber to retire to and his doors be shut upon him he lives in Goshen when the consuming fire did run upon the ground throughout the land there was no storm in Goshen Exod. 9. 26. and when flashes of judgment do burst in upon other persons 't is calm in the Praier-room When the destroying Angel had overrun every house in Egypt with death when there was nothing but carcasses and crying in each dwelling there was not one sick in Goshen Exod. 12. 30. When a thick darkness dwelt upon the Nation the Israelites had lights in all their dwellings Exod. 10. 23. and when a sad dark cloud does sit upon Gods Countenance and pour down inundations of tempest on a people yet then his face does shine in the Closets of devotion there he breaks in and does reveal his comforts God is so there as his Angel was at that time a Pillar of light to them and of cloud to those others Exod. 14. 20. and when in this their pilgrimage he takes off their chariot-wheels v. 25. that they drive heavily prest with the weight of afflictions and the heavier incumbrances of the World striving against the tide and torrent of troubles encountring nothing but rubs and crosses and having on no wheels none of Gods comforts to bear them up they march heavily till at last the waters overwhelm them when as to those others the waters were a wall on the right hand and on the left and to the devout persons the troubles of their times by making them retire into their chambers prove an occasion of security which brings on the next observation from the words hide thy self Whence we draw that Praiers and the exercises of Piety are in sad days the onely great security and the Devotion-chamber a sure hiding place from trouble And indeed where else should we take shelter but in our Sanctuary Where should we seek for refuge but at the horns of the Altar where we offer up the incense of our Praiers and the lifting up of our hands is as the evening Sacrifice I have told you to retire thus into your chambers is to enter Gods bed-chamber and where is safety to be had if it be not there Is there not full quietness and calm in the Lords withdrawing rooms Not to tell you that David plac't his Rock his Fortress his Castle his every word of safety upon this foundation not to reckon up an infinity of places besides Psalm 27. 5. and 61. 2 3 4 5. I shall onely say that 't is impossible for any Sermon to say better what I have to say for him that betakes himself to these secret rooms and nestles there nor more pertinent to a time of sickness and distress than the 91. Psalm hath spoke v. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 c. and to which 't were vanity if not Tautology to add Should I labour to evince this further I could prove strangely to you that good hearty devout Praiers are in time of danger a Security even to a Miracle Security from the fury of men when single Prayers did resist an Army when Moses's hand lifted up in his devotions slew more Amalekites than the armed hands of Joshua and all his Regiments stretcht out for when Moses lifted up his hand then Israel prevailed Exod. 17. 11. Security against the storm of Gods assault for a Praier of Moses is call'd a standing in the breach against the Lord when he came to destroy the People by a plague Psalm 106. 23. so God said he would destroy them had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrathful indignation least he should destroy them They are terms of war and do express the desperatest act of Valour which war hath occasion for when wall and rampart could not resist the storm of shot but the Assault made its way thro stones and bulwarks then must courage become the Rampart maintain the breach and repulse the Assailants This is the danger and the glory of Valour and this very expression do's Scripture make use of to declare the force and courage of a zealous Praier When Gods indignation had storm'd the People when it had made a gap a breach to enter and overrun them in a moment and the Angel with his sword drawn was assaulting had began his deaths in steps Moses arm'd but with single Praier maintains the breach and turns away the Indignation Neither was this all for it did not onely beat off his fury but assail'd him also as it were took God captive and held him that he could not fall upon them For in the 32. Exod. 9 10. he cries to Moses it is a stiff-necked people now therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them and that I may consume them in a moment let me alone Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dimitte me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 permitte me ut invalescat Syr. nunc si permiseris mihi invalescet Arab. dimitte deprecationem tuam à facie mea Chald. Loose me and let me go suffer me let me alone that I may destroy them do not pray to me thy strong desires are as bonds and cords upon me loose me and do not hold me I can do nothing if thou pray my arm of power my stretcht our arm is held in it is restrain'd by thy strong cries thy violent sighs they cool my wrath that it cannot wax hot against them thy zeal it is irresistible do not therefore make use of it do not hinder me do not pray now let me alone and I will make of thee a greater Nation I will bribe thee to silence because my fury will not withstand thy Praiers if thou maintain the breach I shall not take this People now by storm be hir'd then to withdraw let me alone But Moses he would take no bribes from God but he besought the Lord his God as it follows there and the sudden effect of his Praier was the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people Here 's the power of a fervent Praier it hath a kind of force on the Almighty a force that he does seem as it were afraid of would have prevented and
unquenchable brimstone and denounc'd that dire thunder of Go ye cursed into everlasting fire which is the sentence of the Law in its own rigour Yea and besides that blackness and darkness too so that notwithstanding all those lightnings and those revelations God was still in the thick cloud and in the dark and Christ might well say in the verse before the Text No man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him and when he comes to do that he does it in another strain with words of another nature all invitation Come unto me all ye that labor The strain of Gospel is not to thunder us into obedience but I beseech you Brethren by the tender mercies of God and tho there be laboring and burden in the words yet those are the effects of Law and there is ease and rest for that labor and those burdens in the words too and to them it is the Gospel that invites us and it is Christ that gives them for it is he that saith Come unto me These words the Church makes use of for her call unto the Sacrament of the Lords body and certainly it is impossible that they should signify with greater Emphasis than upon that occasion when he does bid you come to him that is to the communication of his body and his bloud for the bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ. You come to him not onely for the emty kindness of a visit there but to partake of his body and his bloud all the redemtions graces mercies which he purchased on the cross If ever Christ do call with passion it is sure when he pours out that bloud for us and saith every one that thirsteth come Come unto me all ye that labor The words are an invitation of Christ in which we may observe 1. The Persons invited All ye that labor and are heavy laden 2. The invitation it self Come unto me 3. The entertainment at this invitation Rest I will give you rest In the handling of these I shall shew first who those persons invited are who they are that are said here to labor and to be heavy laden 2. What is meant by their invitation Come unto me 3. How those persons come to be qualified for this invitation so as to be invited and none other how the laboring heavy laden persons are the onely fit persons to come to Christ. 4. I shall touch the advantages those persons shall gain by coming Of these and 1. Who they are that are said to labor and be heavy laden The words express extremity of burden and labor under it and weariness by reason of that labor they are translated fessi estis bajulantes onera Syr. labore attriti gravati onere by the Arab. And indeed they signify pains such as to make us pant and blow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea thro weakness not be able to stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as that the joints are loosed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the very soul fails and faints and we become as it were in the shadow of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Now this excess of pains may denote two things 1. Either the sinner under that notion as a sinner sins themselves being in Scripture exprest by words that signify labor trouble and weight and therefore the word in the Text translates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which means all those especially iniquity Mich. 2. 1. Wo to them that devise iniquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that devise labors and the very next words will warrant it and work evil it being a most familiar expression with the Prophet David the Workers of Iniquity not onely because it is some mens emploiment and trade here lies their skill their managery they are not Artists in any thing besides but the secrets of sin the mysteries of filthiness the Magisteries of Iniquity these they are Professors of in these chair-men but also Workers of iniquity because it is their toil they sweat under it it is the vanity and vexation of their lives which are rackt in designing contriving and acting the sins of their complexions and ambitions Will you see our Saviors sense of the vexing painfulness of sin he calls your sins of the least size peccata levia as they are esteem'd motes in the eye Matth. 7. 3. Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brothers eye that is why dost thou look so severely on the light faults of others Our escapes that we make slight of they are of such a nature in themselves as to cause the anguish and fretting that dust and splinters do in the tenderest part the eye And if our souls were not all corneous our consciences sear'd and dead we should with the same impatience bear them as our eye does dust with restlesness work against it never quiet till it force out tears to wash away the dust Yea worse than that for the word which we translate mote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a spill of wood a little shiver or splinter a thing absolutely insuppportable to that part which if suffered does not onely threaten it with intolerable pains but with absolute extinction And truly every one of our slighter sins is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a shiver in the eye and then the grosser iniquities will bear both the words of the text of labor and burden and are in the same verse by our Savior entituled to an expression that hath enough of both even a beam in the eye And considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye that is thine own vaster crimes Every design'd and gross wickedness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing whose agony is as much beyond imagination as endurance For how shall the eye bear that which the shoulders must sink under which onely pillars can support Yet such is that burden and therefore the expression is frequent of bearing iniquities St Peter says it of Christ He himself bears our sins and the Prophet Isaiah said it before him c. 53. 11. For he shall bear their iniquities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bear them as a great burden as the word expresses and as event did more express a burden indeed which made the Son of God to sweat bloud and roar and sink and die 'T is true there are of those that do delight in life onely because it is the opportunity of sin it hath no more pleasure in it than is spent in vanity or iniquity without that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life would be a burden they would labor under it all their other time is wearisom and perisheth and notwithstanding in our Saviors character they are the onely drudges yet in their own opinions they are the onely light hearted creatures the onely persons whose life is but various ease and diversified pleasure Yea and the onely great prejudice they have against Religion is
it makes men heavy sad and melancholly hangs plummets upon the soul plucks down the thoughts and countenance and does that which no burden can effect in them whom weights do but exalt elevate and in their own expression a load of sin and drink that sinks their bodies to the earth doth but heighten imagination and delight Alas these men do no more discern the true labor of their own sins than they do the ease and the refreshments of the pious souls They see his fasts and abstinences but they discern not how he feeds upon marrow and fatness as David saith and finds all the words of their luxury in his religious performances how he tasts of the heavenly gift and of the powers of the world to come Heb. 6. 4 5. how he hath the antepasts of blessedness These men do not consider that the pious mans weights are as the other bucket which the heavier it is the faster it lifts that up that is against it a burden theirs like that of wings that does but poise their flight and help them up to Heaven whereas their own lightness shall sink them into the deep of that pit that hath no bottom 'T is true indeed those very sins that make our Savior stile the man a laborer are in other places called sleep as if they had the ease of rest as if to him that were wearied with duties of calling or devotion to take vicissitudes of sinning would be a soft refreshment and a pleasant reward as if a little return of iniquity would restore him as sleep doth the weary laborer And how shall we reconcile these expressions Shall we attribute them to the unhappy contradictions of this thing sin which is at once ease and pressure sleep and yet heavy labour or rather shall we gather hence the extremely toilsom condition of the sinner whose very rest is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whose refreshments tire and are most wearisom where shall he look for ease whose ease is misery and anxiety Tho his life be all sleep yet he is all that while one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here in the Text. And so those very wickednesses which are here called heavy burden are in other places called our own body our selves And what shall lighten him whose very self is weight What shall disburden him who is his own immense pressure Wretched men that we are who shall deliver us from these burdens of our selves Burdens indeed with which the expressions seem to labor as well as the sinner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have not words for them the mineries the Gallies the Mill or dungeon are words of ease to the service of sin No such slavery in the world as his that is bound to serve his lusts and passions he must adventure thro all black designs and blacker hazards to attend ambition or to wreak ones malice or some hasty choler adventure upon rotteness embrace a Purgatory but to please an itch must be the Martyr of his lust run upon quarrels qualms head-ach hazard desperate misfortunes to quench not thirst but a little custom If you would see the labor that is in sin behold your Savior in the Garden it made the Son of God to sweat like clots of bloud it squeez'd that very person who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it made him faint not able to stand under that tree on which he was to bear the Iniquity At such hard rates man buyeth damnation as if he envied himself ease in Ruin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he doth extremely labor till he faint to get to Hell Have you read in Scripture the pains and anguishes of a man possest by a Devil how it speaks of such a one that was intolerably vext and tormented how the spirit rent and tore him often cast him into the agonies of death from it did revive him still onely to throw him back again into them It were no hard matter to shew that the Scripture does express every gross Sinner to be one of these Demoniacs to be possessed and inhabited by a Devil Matth. 12. 43 44. When the unclean spirit is gon out of a man he Walketh thro dry places then he saith I will return to my house from whence I came out and he enters in and dwells there And what doth all this mean but describe a person that after seeming amendment returns back again to his courses of sin Of such a one the Devil saith I will return A wicked person is the Devil's house Sathan dwells there and is not his house Hell And then are not all the miseries of Tophet the torments of the vale of Hinnom in a Sinner Yea experience is fair enough for this that the habitually wicked person is a Demoniac Look upon the wrathful angry furious man and you would think the man possest were but his picture his passion swels and tears him he stares and foams he cries out and is not so innocent as to say what have I to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God for he hath to do with him in blaspheming him with oaths and execrations and his spirit rends not himself onely but the wounds of that Holy one of God and if his passion could speak plain it would surely say his name also were Legion The debaucht Drunkards they have the Epilepsies the falling sicknesses the dead Apoplexies of men possest and there the Devil is again enter'd into swine The lustful person may find also a spirit of uncleaness and an unclean Devil in the Gospel And thus our sins do treat us And who then but wretched man would buy damnation at so hard rates who would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extremely labor tire himself till he faint to get to hell as if he envied himself ease because he is to go down the hill thither that he may think he has an easy descent facilis descensus he will therefore load himself with a most heavy burden to make his passage the more troublesom Of what a profligated choice are we that refuse Heaven with ease and chuse Hell tho we must labor hard to get it Or secondly letting the heavy laden stand as they do in the sense we have now given we cannot excuse the Sinner from that expression there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that labor may signify such as groan under the sense of that burden such as labor to rid themselves of that weight that pant and blow after a liberty and ease from that heavy pressure under which they find themselves sinking into the horror of that deep the very imaginations of which doth cause faintings of soul in them and Apoplexies of fear that tire themselves to find out any way to escape from that eternal weight of torments that is prepared for them below and the weight of indignation and vengeance that hangs over them above and from that heavy burden themselves that sinks faster than either of the other outvying God's threats with multiplied accumulated
iniquities The sweats of soul under the sense of the burden of sin the labors of mortifying the flesh and crucifying the affections of putting the body of sin to death will justify this sense The new Birth also hath its pangs and the Child of God as he is not engendred by weak purposes faint resolutions so neither is he brought forth in a sigh or wish of mercy there is a labor in it In this expression you may see the nature of repentance the dawnings and first flashes of that Catholic Duty 't is not that easy thing to change my mind onely and begin to believe That that is not the best course I have hitherto trod in the way of Sinners not the safest and most pleasant path tho few of us will believe that neither is it that easy wish I would I had not don this act for when the pleasure 's gon and dead the memory of it is so unsatisfying if not loathsom that a man can hardly not wish it Nor yet is it that easy desire of mercy that saying Lord Lord. The Penitent they are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here they are such as even faint under a sense of the horror of their sins whose hearts are broken and wounded with that heavy galling weight of them If I should gather up the racks and tortures the Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum that self whip in the dark rooms and recesses of our thoughts conscience dealing with us by the discipline of mad men as knowing the sinner is not onely Solomons fool and Davids man without understanding but even St Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mad-man the tacita sudant praecordia culpa which a Heathen can reckon up to us And add to these the Scripture expressions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pains of travel the labor of a woman in child-birth the agony of the Cross and the pangs of death the word repentance would bear them all and they would let us see that the Penitent is truly one that labors under a very heavy burden and so is invited here by our Savior Come Thirdly those that labor and are heavy laden may signify such as groan under a burden of afflictions and look upon them not as chastisements onely but inflictions and are even wearied and affrighted by them Thus those judgments which God did by his Prophets threaten to the Nations are in those Prophets called the burden of those Nations and the cross and calamities are often called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the labor in the Text 1 Tim. 4. 10. and generally all the troubles and difficulties of this life Rev. 14. 13. of which death is there made the rescue And I need make no application of this interpretation the words labor and heavy laden do in these daies sufficiently apply themselves I shall onely tell you that the whole sense of those words sum'd up make thus much Those that are heavy burdened with sins and the punishment of those sins afflictions and groan under the sense of both of them laboring earnestly to be rid and be delivered from both these are bid to come to Christ which is the invitation and what it means I am secondly to shew Come unto me And first in general the word used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come is not onely a word of exhortation but of great encouragement also in the doing so often used Come and let us kill him and then the inheritance shall be ours and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come ye unto the wedding And indeed such is needful to the persons here spoken to the laboring heavy laden for them to take a journey if there be not the encouragement of some great advantage it will not sound like an invitation but an infliction and therefore our Savior besides the rest he promises used animating words even in the very call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore the whole invitation come unto me tho it be used in the Gospel and may very well signify come to me as to a Teacher and Instructer so Nicodemus is said to come to Christ and they are said to come to the light as that which was to reveal yea and that place in Isaiah 55. 3. whither our Savior do's much reflect when he useth this expression seems to import but so Encline your ear and come unto me hear c. yea and may so signify in this place the words going before being all things are given me of my father and no man knoweth the father but the son and he to whom the son will reveal him it then follows come to me as if he should say therefore if you desire to be instructed in the way to life come to me and tho you do labor under the load of many sins yet I will shew you a way how you shall find ease and rest and that way follows in the next verse take my yoke upon you and learn of me and ye shall be sure to find rest this is very natural yet because to give you rest is more than to shew you a way to it and so may seem a promise and a reward very apportioned to the duty rest to coming therefore it is most probable that come doth not onely signify come to me to learn your duty but that the come should be it self a duty and so I shall consider it and the expression come to me does in the Gospel signify a twofold duty 1. It signifies to obey and serve Thus very often most expresly in the Epistle to the Hebrews to come to God is to serve and worship him c. 11. 6. For he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him and c. 7. 25. He is able to save them that come to God by him that serve God as he commandeth and enableth c. 10. 1. The sacrifices which they offered year by year could not make the comers thereunto perfect could not perfectly cleanse them that served God by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 22d verse there Let us come with a true heart worship him with unfeigned piety and obedience And the sense will be fully clear from the expressions that relate to it Seek the Lord draw near to him and then come to him To seek him is to enter upon such a course of life by which his favor is to be obtain'd and what it is you will see Isaiah 55. where when he had bid them come to him that they may do that he bids them seek him v. 6 7. Seek the Lord while he may be found let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let them return unto the Lord. Deut. 4. 29 30. But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thine heart and with all thy soul if thou turn to the Lord thy God and shalt be obedient
their lusts advance but their lusts are their plague and torment them and they extremely hate and curse those things which they do passionately desire Now that habitual Sinner his sins they are his emploiment his delight too he longs as those other but he satisfies also and finds pleasure in them and then if those others be fit company for the Devils onely canst thou believe thy self fit company for Christ that he should bid thee come to him No begin to act thy Hell a little sooner account them here thy torments hate them in time perceive them to be burdens while they may be laid down and then come unto Christ and he will give thee rest And evermore O Lord give us of thy rest a rest from sin here and a rest from misery eternally Yea O Lord give us to labor and to find trouble under that intolerable burden of our guilt that we may with eager hast fly to the refreshment that we perverse obdurate Sinners whom thy mercies cannot invite our own miseries may force to be happy and tho our wickednesses are multiplied into an infinite mass and weight yet despise us not when we fall under them for thou didst invite us to come and bring all that load to thee despise us not tho heavy laden for thou thy self didst bear this weight and didst die under it And O thou who didst thy self thus suffer by reason of this load pity us that labor with it ease us of the burden of our former guilt free us from the slavery of our iniquity from bearing any longer Sathan's loads then shall we at last sit down with thee in the Land of everlasting rest deliver'd from all weights but that eternal weight of glory and resting from all labors save that of praising thee and ascribing all Honor Power Praise Might Majesty and Dominion to Father Son and holy Ghost for evermore SERMON X. OF THE CHRISTIANS VICTORY Over Death Sin and the Law 1 Cor. 15. 57. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory thro our Lord Jesus Christ. THE words are the close of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Song of joy and triumph for a victory Now a victory supposeth Enimies and the verse before names them and the Text shews us the means that they art conquer'd by and who they are that are partakers of the Victory I shall declare and treat of both 1. The Enimies here mention'd and we may account them three if that which gives both aid and strength to fortifies our Enimy be so as sure it is 1. Here is Death which sin arms with a sting and do's envenome it 2. Sin it self empower'd and strengthned by the Law 3. That Law also In the second place here are the means by which the Victory is gotten and for whom us the victory thro Jesus In handling all which I shall shew First that the Law gives Sin all its strength and how it do's so 2ly That Sin is the sting of Death and how it is so 3ly That by Christ both the Law which is the strength of Sin is taken away and Sin which is the sting of Death pull'd out and so both Sin and Death so weaken'd that they cannot hurt now and they shall be swallowed up in perfect victory and who they are all this is don for Of these all in this order which I crave leave to speak to directly without any least diverting from the Text or Subject First I am to speak of the first preparations that are made against us in behalf of our Enimies and that is to shew you that the Law gives all the strength to Sin which it hath and how it do's so Sin hath its very being from Law it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transgression of the Law 1 John 3. 4. and Sin is not imputed where there is no Law Rom. 5. 13. yea where there is no Law there is no transgression c. 4. 15. But this is not all for in the Law besides the Precepts there is also Sanction and it lays a twofold obligation first to duty secondly upon transgression to punishment 1. To duty and that perfect and unsinning strict obedience for the terms are these Cursed is he that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them And to this the whole man is oblig'd the soul as well as body caro spiritus Dei res est saith Tertull. God made the soul as well as body one 's his creature as much as the other and the one hath as much reason then to pay him honor and obedience as the other if indeed the spirit hath not much more to obey him in its own motions and actings than in those of the body which are onely under it and guided by it So that thoughts are criminal against this Law as well as doings by them the Soul fulfils its part of the transgression more it may be than its own share while it robs the Flesh seizes its satisfactions and makes them her own against her nature And indeed whatever part the Law is broken and transgrest by 't is transgression and sin still whether by the mind for lust when it hath conceived onely sin is then begotten James 1. 15. or by the tongue for of every idle word we must give an account at the day of Judgment Matth. 12. 36. and by thy words thou shalt be condemn'd Or lastly by the works So that according to the Tenor of this strict and severe Law whatever we can do or indeed whatever we do not is Sin besides commissions that are sinful there is still defect and so transgression in our thoughts our words and deeds even in the best and in not doing also there 's omission and so failing But besides this severe obligation of the Law to duty upon this our faileur there is a severer obligation 2. To punishment for every sin is cursed as we saw Upon this account the Law saith St Paul worketh wrath Rom. 4. 15. we are children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. whose inheritance is destruction and who are of right to possess onely the sad issues of God's indignation for to this the Law condemns us all by reason of our Sins and upon that account the Law is said to be the strength of Sin Because by force and vertue of this threatning of the Law we that have sinned are therefore liable and obnoxious to the condemnation of it And this I take to be the meaning of that place Rom. 7. 7 8 9 10. I had not known sin but by the law for I had not known concupiscence except the law had said thou shalt not covet But sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence for without the law sin was dead but when the commandment came sin revived and I died and the commandment which was ordain'd to life I found to be unto death The Apostle's drift here is not to evince how the
see him as he is add this Every man that hath this hope purifieth himself as he is pure doth righteousness in the words following and so is righteous even as he is righteous But that we may know what King David means by beholding Gods face in Righteousness we must know that first by Righteousness is meant uprightness and sincerity of a religious holy virtuous life and as for the beholding of Gods face we may take notice that altho God saith he spoke to Moses face to face yet he tells the same Moses that he cannot see his face and live Exod. 33. 11 10. so that Davids beholding of his face is not seeing him as he did hope to do when he did awake up after Gods likeness but 1. As for God to lift up the light of his countenance Psalm 4. 6. and to make his face to shine upon a man Psalm 31. 16. is to be favorable to him and to hide Psalm 30. 7. or turn away his face 2 Chron. 30. 9. is to withdraw his favor and to be displeased so also to seek his face 1 Chron. 16. 11. is to endeavor to obtain his kindness and accordingly to see or behold his face is to be in his favor to be in a state of enjoying it But besides this also 2. As those that are said to behold the face of Kings are those that minister about them do them service of the nearest admission and that stand in their presence and are ready still to execute whatever they command So 2 King 25. 19. and he took five men of those that saw the King's face of those that serv'd him in ordinary and so very often Ester 1. 14. c. And as secondly the Angels that are ministring Spirits sent forth by God to minister perpetually are said to see the face of God always Matt. 18. 10. so when David says of God thou settest me before thy face Psalm 41. 12. the Jews expound set me that he might serve minister unto him for that is to stand before the face of one 1 Kings 1. 2 4. and c. 10. 8. and c. 17. 1. c. as he had said dost appoint me for thy service and by consequence to see his face or to behold his presence is to wait upon him in all duty and obedience to his commands whom they attend accordingly to walk before him or walk with him in his presence is to serve him constantly with all uprightness Gen. 17. 1. and to please him Heb. 11. 5. cum Gen. 5. 24. But particularly in the acts of Worship and Religion his House the place that 's dedicated to his Worship being call'd his Court his presence Psalm 95. 2. and 100. 2 4. because he sate upon and spoke from the Mercy-seat Exod. 25. 22. Numb 7. 89. and the Ark is therefore his presence and his face those that serve there are said to minister before him in his presence those that come there to appear before him Psalm 42. 2. those that pray to seek his face 2 Chron. 7. 14. and to intreat the face of the Lord 1 Kings 13. 6. and our King David did desire one thing of the Lord which says he I will require even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord Psalm 27. 4. So that to behold God's face in righteousness here does signify all this I will serve thee truly faithfully attend thy commands and wait upon thee in a constant diligent performance of my duty live as always in thy presence holily and righteously especially in attendance on thy Worship when I come to seek thy face to put my self before thee in thy presence and so doing I make no doubt but that thou wilt lift up the light of thy countenance upon me and I shall behold thy face to shine upon thy servant And indeed that this is the means and that there is no other way to arrive at this state is not difficult to prove for the righteous Lord loveth righteousness saith the same David Psalm 11. 7. his countenance will behold the thing that is just whereas without this no man shall see the Lord and thereupon the Prophet Micah after strict inquiry in the peoples name what they were to do that they might find God's face look pleasingly upon them and see his favorable countenance wherewithall shall I come before the Lord and how myself before the most High God Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams If his favor be to be bought tho at the greatest price 't will be abvisable to give it and the dearest purchase would be a reasonable one Or shall I give ten thousand rivers of oyl thereby to make his face to shine and look upon me with a chearfull countenance This sure were to be don Or farther yet shall I give my first-born for my transgression or the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul Time was indeed when men would do that offer up their tender infants in the fire to Moloch to preserve themselves from those sins of the other Tophet as if the burnt child were to expiate the foul heats that begat it I know not whether men believe now such transgressions can deserve so severe atonements that a sin of theirs is valuable at the life of their own first-born tho they take upon them to profess the faith that they were valued at the life of the first-born of God however there our Prophet shapes this answer to that question wherewithall shall I come before the Lord He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And truly if we come before the Lord to behold his presence in the duties of Religion we must see his face in Righteousness otherwise he will either turn away his Face or else our praiers will but call his frowns upon us and indanger us to perish at the rebuke of his countenance The Prophet Isaiah speaking as from God to that vainglorious nation of the Jews saith c. 1. v. 12 c. When ye come to appear before me who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination to me it is iniquity even your solemn meetings Sabboths and your appointed feasts my soul hateth they are a trouble unto me I am weary to bear them And when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when ye make many praiers I will not hear Wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgment right the oppressed c. And surely if men do not put away the evil of their doings from them when they come before his face how lowd
the first the qualification believe which is absolutely necessary to make men capable of any benefits from Christ. For in all benefits of this kind the Text mentions such as were to come by miracle 't is well known what St Matthew says of Nazareth his own country that he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief c. 13. 58. St Mark expresses it that he could there do no mighty work c. 6. 5. that is he could not be inclined to work them so as that he could or would be willing to do any saving that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them For tho signs are not as St Paul says for believers but for them that believe not 1. Cor. 14. 22. so that infidelity seems rather prerequir'd to them than belief since they are don on purpose to convince work men to the Faith on which account some were always wrought first where he was not known to raise mens opinions and expectations concerning him which if they were heeded so that they did work some but beginnings of Belief he us'd to add more to encrease that Faith and confirm it But where the first Essays were ineffectual and got no credit there he did forbear for such render'd themselves unworthy of them altogether Miracles were lost upon them not attaining that end which they were intended for which was not for compassion to their sick to to heal or their dead to raise them for then as St Chrysostome observes he would have cur'd or rais'd them all but was for their Conviction to make faith of the Divinity of his Person and Doctrine and prevail with them to give themselves up to him as to the Messiah and therefore all those who by the knowledg or the fame of his great works were drawn to come to him for help he still requires profession of the faith they had concerning him and just according to the measures of that faith so he dispenses aid Thus Matt. 9. 28. the blind men that cried after him and followed him for sight he asks believe ye that I am able to do this and when they affirm'd yea Lord he yeilds no more but this according to your faith be it unto you v. 29. But when the Canaanitish woman did believe even to importunacy and trouble and her faith was such as would neither be shaken nor receive repulse but was full proof against Christ's arguments and his seeming reproches yea made use of his upbraidings urg'd them to her own advantage and in spight of all resistance persever'd Christ could not then contain but cried O woman great is thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt Matt. 15. 28. And on the other side as while Peter's courage seeing Christ his master walking towards them upon the water made him desire to meet him on the water too accordingly it suited while he did resolvedly obey his Master and rely on his assistance that commanded him he was sustain'd that confidence did buoy him up but when a turbulent strong wind once shook his faith when he began to fear and then to doubt immediatly he sunk Matt. 14. 30. And all the reason in the world that when he doubted whether Christ would or were able to uphold him in obeying him tho he had present experiment of both he should be then left to himself when in the height of the success and the securities of miracles he was afraid and stagger'd since 't was the whole design of miracles and by consequence of that to work faith and it is the very essence also of faith to assure us of God's power and his readiness to perform whatever he hath promis'd howsoever difficult It was this very faith that gave denomination and acceptance to the Father of the Faithful for when Abraham was bid to offer up that Son in whom he had receiv'd the promises that he should be the Father of many Nations that faith by which against hope he believ'd in hope that it would come to pass and staggering not consider'd neither difficulty rather natural impossibility of what was promis'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor was curious to satisfy himself or indeed examin how it should or could be as if he would model God's performances or his own expectation by the measuress of his comprehension of the means and method but accounting God was able if all other methods fail'd to raise him up from death altho he had no instance of that power Heb. 11. 19. and being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness Rom. 4. 21 22. Now as this faith that God was able was that faith which made Abraham approved and the like faith in Christ we see was that which made them capable of his miraculous assistances so those cures and miracles being emblems and indeed pledges of that greater cure that far more comprehensive miracle he undertook and came to work on mankind the healing of their bodies not onely shadowing out the healing of their souls but also restitution of sight to the blind movement to the lame and the like being partial essaies of that Resurrection which he promis'd that was to restore all those to all at once giving life to the dead the like assurance of his power and readiness to do all this together with a full trust in him that whatever difficulties we encounter or imagin yet in the performance of his promises he will never fail those who seek after and pursue them in the ways that he hath chalk'd out to arrive at them This faith I say is the first qualification that can make us capable of benefit by him indeed as 't is the first so 't is the most intimate and onely active Principle of all Obedience Religion and Virtue For when all impressions both of God himself of good and evil and their after-recompence were defac'd and tho the lineaments of these things were wrought into men in their making and the study of Philosophy had refresh'd the dying images yet an inundation of corruption and debauchery had overspread all so far as that Almighty God did think it needful that his Son should be incarnated to revele again our duty and teach virtue and to give us an example of it in his practice even in the most severe and fatal instances and after having suffer'd for it and by that means ransom'd us from suffering for transgressing of our duty then to rise again and ascend into Glory to assure the blessed recompences of Religion and Obedience and the infinitely miserable returns of impiety and vice if after all we either shall so far abhor the duty as that we renounce these glorious obligations to it turn away from the very proposal of all those advantages that are to crown it and defy that ransom paid for them disbelieve all count them dreams cheats or illusions or however if we cannot satisfy our selves that those rewards
accordingly you may see many that otherwise are not very apt to sin yet then they will offer at little Atheistical beginnings of it they will endeavor because they will be in the fashion of the company And this is one of Satans advantageous seasons when as we see if there be but one by of a sober and discreet virtue that dares speak meek reason or dares when they do swill their Souls in filthy folly of one or other sort or are loud in the rants of vice by disliking gestures let them know that such unclean entertainments are detestable to a sober person or withdraws abruptly by such a departure shews that he scorns to stay to behold or hear such impurities this often does not onely hinder those beginners take them off that would have bin dabbling but does somtimes a little damp the progress of the most professed Sinner It is a bridle to his neck he will not march so furiously in his carrier of oaths or of obsceness or whatever other sin he does not indulge himself so full a licence and so by this means God gets some respect and Religion a little repute when they see it hath some followers and God hath some that will not see him dishonored And truly my Brethren do but consider what a storm it does use to raise in any man to hear an absent Friend or Relation abused or evil spoken of If we be in any degree of them the world calls Gentlemen then nothing but the sword must make return to such a word nothing but life and soul can answer nothing but bloud and death repair and 't is this resentment we in whose company the disgrace was offer'd think ourselves more concern'd than that Friend that was the subject of And then methinks you should not think it strange if there be some that do believe they have so much relation to God and that he hath approv'd himself to be so much their Friend they cannot but take it unkindly and speak when they hear him affronted and see him dishonor'd And methinks too it should not be unreasonable to expect this from all of us to whom God hath bin Friend enough that we should do this handsom this noble glorious thing as to right the Lord in companies where we are and to credit our Maker and not let vice exalt over him where we shall chance to be Truly my Brethren this is the least that God hath reason to expect from us even the reproof of our words that of our open holy lives by which as the wicked say in Wisdom 2. 12. The Righteous do reprove their thoughts and upbraid them with their offending the Law and object to their infamy their transgressions This is strictly and to an high degree required by God of every one of us that we may have influence upon others to be open and exemplary to shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in Heaven which was the reason of the command and the end of our very being Now to God the Father c. SERMON XV. OF THE ACCEPTED TIME the Day of Salvation 2 Cor. 6. 2. Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of Salvation THE words foregoing of which these I now read are the application run thus for he saith I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation I have succour'd thee which God saying in the 49th of Isaiah 8. signified as in the type in relation to the Church and Nation of the Jews he had days of Salvation fit and proper seasons to deliver them from their affictions and calamities for Salvation often signifies that had his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tempus placentiae time of grace wherein he was well pleas'd to hearken to their cries and wants and in those he heard and succour'd them so in the Antitype and in relation of the Christian Church and all the Members of it for of these St Paul here useth it expresly he hath his accepted time days not onely for such temporal deliverance of which some will have the Salvation meant here but much more for Salvation Eternal But then as Kings when they publish acts of grace and oblivion do not onely set appoint but limit out the time for Subjects to come in submit and return to their fidelity and allegiance which if once elapst they are incapable of benefit by any such grant cannot at least plead it so it seems God does too and it is not sure that whosoever at what time soever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved Rom. 10. 13. but as King David told him they shall make their praier to thee in a time of finding Psalm 32. 6. in a time when his good pleasure it the very word here Psalm 69. 13. and this time St Paul restrains here to the present now meaning not onely in the general now in times while they are under grace are in the Covenant of it and when the day-spring from on high hath visited them and while they had the Gospel that word of this Salvation for whilest men live under this gracious dispensation they may let the opportunities of laying hold of it go by them while the light of the Gospel shines upon them yet the day of Salvation may be quite gon out of which St Paul here seems sollicitous for his Corinthians who had receiv'd the Gospel least yet they may have receiv'd that grace in vain and the Salvation should escape them To prevent which saith he there is no other sure way but by seizing on the present Behold now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation so that the words afford these subjects of discourse 1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us 2. This time is limited 't is a day of salvation consequently we may possibly outstand it and may suffer it to pass irrecoverably 3. The onely sure way to prevent that is to lay hold on the present to begin now 1. There is a time wherein we may be certainly accepted if we come to God and there is a day of Salvation offer'd us The Text does make sufficient proof of this for if the accepted time be now and if now be the day of salvation then there is such a day and time which our Lord commanded to be preached to every humane creature in the world Indeed the preaching of the Gospel is nothing else but publishing this truth the Gospel being but a tender of Salvation upon pardon of whatever we have don amiss and the accepting us whenever we repent and truly turn to God believing on him and resolving to continue faithful to him and all this assur'd to us by Covenant such as God himself both made and ratified in the bloud of Christ and to prevent exception since he gave command to have this Gospel preach'd
Orator Men have their shifts of conscience as of clothes their dress is carefuller and their rules stricter much abroad in public then when at home or out of sight As for the conscience of compliance many do not only do things which they have dislike to out of compliance but satisfy themselves because they do them with reluctancy against their inclination to avoid the being singular or offensive For the mode too Men learn to interpret God's laws also by the practice of the age live and judge by imitation and example The man's conscience tho it boggle at first sight of dangerous uncomely liberties yet conversation with them as it takes away the horror of them so he thinks it do's the danger and ill influence And as fashion makes all dresses to be mode and not look uncomely so the custom of these things makes them seem indifferent A Conscience also for the interests of a Profession as in trade for example and in Corporations of it it thinks their combinations for the better keeping up the Company fair and honest and therewithal make tricks and exactions lawful And in single traders such another principle makes Princes Laws be broken their dues stoln without any check of Conscience and I verily believe that many think these are not inconsistent with a good mind I might have instanc'd in other professions particularly in that which satisfies it self in the defending manifestly wrongful and in right causes in protracting suits to mens great molestation and the ruin of just rights But in truth this is paltry trifling with religion having false weights and mesures of what 's lawful and unlawful things that God abhors and indeed these frauds will in the end return upon their authors and the unhappy artist will most certainly deceive his own soul. For he never can arrive at life whom he that is the way do's not lead thither Christ and his rules only can introduce us into the mansions of Eternity 'T is true there may be doubts somtimes about the way of duty for 't is that I speak to in applying general rules for circumstances may perplex vary cases obligations seem to clash and quarrel so that one may be uncertain which to follow what means he should take to attain his great end 2. Now in case of such uncertainty as to the means the Child of this world do's observe a Rule of Prudence better then the Christian for he takes advice For who intends to purchase an inheritance but he goes to Counsel and if there be the least appearance of uncertainty in the Title spares no charge to have it searcht and to be sure The least indisposition drives the man that aims at life to his Physician In every difficulty of a voiage where there 's any apprehension of a shelf or rock the Merchant and the Master will consult the Pilot. But in the voiage towards heaven how many make shipwrack of a good conscience because they will not commit themselves to any conduct How often do they shake their Title to God's inheritance because they will not take advice of him at whose mouth God commanded they should seek the Law And who do's go to the Physician of Souls to prevent death Eternal I do not say men should betake themselves to a director in each action of their lives For who goes to a Doctor to know whether he should eat stones or poison or who asks a Lawyer whether he should keep or burn his evidences Now for the most part what I ought to do what to forbear is every jot as clear as those except where circumstances trouble or else seeming cross obligations a muse our judgment and then for a man not to ask direction in his way to heaven is unanswerable folly in a man that will inquire the way to the next village 't is nothing but a wretchless stupid carelesness in the Eternal interests of his own Soul When he that takes the best directions he can get with this sincere intent that he may not transgress may quiet his own mind in this that he hath don his utmost faithfully towards duty and in doing that with our good God shall be interpreted to have don his duty if he also faithfully pursue the means directed the 3d. property of Wisdom which does set the man upon the use of those means which he must attain his end by the last thing I am to speak too Now as to this I must confess the Child of this world wiser and give up the cause Whoever does resolvedly intend his profit pleasure honor or whatever state in this life 't is the business of his parts his study and his whole life to pursue it and it is so while the appetite of any carnal end is eager in him Anger hate revenge c. And I cannot say it is so with the Christian as to his end But the worldly man besides the zeal in using all means in pursuit of his end he observs two Rules that wisdom dictates with more carefulness 1. Be circumspect then wary both prescrib'd us by St. Paul Ephes. 5. 15. See that ye walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 circumspectly not as fools but wise as we translate it and the Vulgar caute warily with caution Now the first of these two Circumspection signifies the looking every way about him to discern or if he can foresee whatever may obstruct him in his progress give him any hindrance in whatever shape it is likely to attemt it whether it do threaten with inconvenience or do flatter with the deceitful appearances of being useful come with treachery or open opposition as a false Friend or a known Enemy and the other Caution sets him upon all the care he can make use of to avoi'd or rid himself of such impediments of what kind soever Now t is evident the man of this world in whatever occupation trade profession or place he may be from the lowest to the highest who proposes any one thing to himself and does not live ex tempore and follow ends and objects as the boy 's do Crows but hath at least some one design so far as he does so looks round him that he may shun every thing that would defeat divert or but disturb him in it and endeavors to move every stone which he may stumble at in his pursuit whatever may be an impediment to his attainments Now the Child of Light hath warning given him by the wise man also My Son if thou come to serve the Lord prepare thy soul for temtation There are those that will attemt to break his progress in pursuit of any such designment His enemy the Devil like a roaring Lyon his false friend the Flesh and a third that will assault him under both appearances the World somtimes by reproches taunts and insolent scorn by turning piety and virtue into raillery discouraging men from the pursuit somtimes by vexatious molesting injuring oppressing good men that they think will bear it making
by except we will walk on in darkness unto the land of utter darkness But as a lanthorn is no guidance to the blind and a light is of use only where there is an eye so Gods commandments can have no influence upon nor give direction or assistance to our waies except this eye of the mind be enlightned by them for it is Conscience that is the conveiance to all duty to the heart of man that cannot set up obedience but as the Conscience do's press it on it that conveys the immediate obligation My Conscience tells me this I must forbear that I must practise Yea where there was no law to give direction the eye of Conscience looking o're the frame of man a creature reasonable in his making could strait see a necessity of doing things agreable to right reason and viewing the materials of the pile saw he was built of Soul as well as body of of an immortal Spirit as well as a carnal part knew that his life was to be order'd to the uses of the Spirit as well as of the flesh and more indeed that being the better part and easily could gather hence that man was not to serve his lower brutish part the body so as to discompose his soul and when it did so did condemn him for the doing of it And upon this S. Paul affirms Rom. 2. 14 15. When the Gentiles that have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law they having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written on their hearts their Conscience bearing them witness Which says that tho the rest of the world had not the Revelation of Gods will and Law as the Jews had yet from the dictats of their reason and the notions of good and evil implanted in them their conscience did oblige them unto the performance of such things as the Law required and upon such performance or omission without any other Law did either excuse them as men that did not culpably wander out of those paths which the light and Eye that God had planted in them did direct them in or else accuse them as transgressors and render them obnoxious to punishment And so it did before the Law So Rom. 5. 13 14. For until the Law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed where there is no Law Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgressions First after Adams time till Moses before the giving of the Law men fin'd and tho it be true that sin is not charg'd to punishment but where there is a Law to forbid it under that penalty and therefore it might be thought that sin without the Law would not have brought death into the world yet from Adam till Moses death reign'd men died that had not sinn'd as Adam did against an express actual precept promulgated as his was and establish't with a positive threat of death but died because they had sinn'd against the laws of their nature the principles of duty that were put into their making which Conscience prest upon their practise and whose guidance they would not follow they pull'd death upon themselvs in the errors of their waies 'T was by the equity of this that when the wickedness of men grew great in the earth the floud grew so too an inundation of waters overspread it when sin had once don so and iniquity against the dictates of conscience struck all the world at once with death except eight persons Conscience therefore where there is law and also where there is none is the great director of our actions and to this I shall apply our Saviors discourse dividing not the Text but Conscience and in the several members verifying what our Savior he reaffirms 1. Conscience either respecteth actions to be don or actions already don First as it respecteth actions to be don telling us this we must do that we must forbear so first as it answers to the single Eye it denotes the pure Conscience the enlightned Eye of the mind as S. Paul calls it that is a truly well inform'd Conscience a Conscience that judges according to its rule and to this I shall first tell you what is the entire rule of conscience and consequently when it s dictates are right when it informs me truly this I must do that I must forbear 2. Prove to you that all our actions that are regulated by such a well inform'd conscience are good and honest so that if this eye be single the whole body shall be full of light If the conscience be pure the man's holy and so the first part of the text is proved 2. As it answers to the evil eye so it denotes an evil conscience a conscience that do's not give true judgment of duty ill inform'd And this either First wholly so and then 't is reprobate sense such as that of them that call good evil and evil good from which men are stil'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4. 2. or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Phavorinus Rom. 1. 31. Or secondly but in part and then 't is either first an erring conscience or secondly a doubtful conscience or thirdly a scrupulous conscience to which also several others will fall in And I shall shew you how every of these do's mislead a man into the dark The scrupulous raiseth clouds and mists about him dark errors and discomforts too the doubtful do's instead of guiding leave him so puzl'd that he knows not which way to be-take himself and the erring conscience lights him into the pit takes him by the hand to thrust him down guides him into a necessity of sin and the no conscience the reprobate sense it is a darkness somwhat worse then that the blackness of Hell here All this I shall do in order Upon the other part conscience as it relates to actions already don so it do's testify and in so doing either excuse or accuse Rom. 2. 15. Now tho conscience in the other former respect hath indeed the greater influence upon our practise and so to it the text do's more directly answer yet this latter having some also in order to the making future actions holy by repentance for when once the soul hath shipwrack't on a sin and she is ready to sink and perish there is no plank on which she can escape but repentance Now 't is this Eye that must look out for that 't is an accusing conscience that must set him upon Repentance this hurry's him about and will not let him rest 'till he get upon the plank that 's fastned to the Anchor even the Anchor of hope by which until it be secur'd a good conscience never is at quiet Because I intend to say but little to this I shall dispatch it now And that in order to its actions excusing and accusing And first if conscience be the
taken from thee it is its own defence and shine for righteousness shall go before thee and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward and then 't is clearly prov'd that such a single Eie shall make the body full of light 2. Light do's signify holiness of life deeds truly Christian walk as Lights in the Lord nothing more common in Scripture and Darkness signifies a sinful and un-Christian life a life that 's full of deeds of darkness And then the words mean thus as the eie is the candle of the body lightens and directs it well if it be as it ought but otherwise very ill and the man is in the dark if his eie be ill and do not serve him so is the heart of man as to the guidance and direction of his actions if his eie be single if he have an heart taken off from the world a liberal bountiful mind not set upon the love and desire of the things of this world his whole body will be full of light his whole life will be very Christian all his actions holy and heavenly and to the making of them so liberality of mind hath a very observable influence It will incline a man wonderfully to pious courses it is a leading vertue as the eie is a leading part But if the eie be evil but if the heart be worldly set upon wealth either for it self or for those heights or fine things or pleasures which wealth do's procure if it be unsatisfied in these things for it self or envious at others for them the whole body will be full of darkness the whole life will be very un-Christian such a disposition of mind as that quite draws a man off from the temper that Christ requires the unsatisfied the envious and the covetous person can never serve God but only Sin those dispositions being the root of all evil Now if the light that is in thee be darkness if thy heart be un-Christian and if thy leading vertue that was to take thee off from all worldly inclinations be extinct and dark in thee how great is that darkness what an un-Christian life will there be and whatever light do's shine about thee of the Gospel whatever light thou dost pretend of knowledg or of whatsoever else there is a deep darkness dwells upon thy heart and is in all thy actions Now this sense we see connects what went before and that which follows after drives on our Savior's design that he is pressing here and to this sense Scripture alwaies speaks in the expressions of single and of evil eie of light and darkness and therefore this was certainly the sense that was intended by our Savior and to the prosecuting of it I shall shew 1. That to have a generous liberal mind an heart taken off from the self uses and advantages of wealth is the great means the great engine and instrument of making all the actions very Christian the life holy 2. This grace in the heart bounty of mind is a great evidence of a true Christian heart 3. A worldly heart loving and desiring wealth troubled at its condition envying others that are in better and for the ends of any advantages to it self straitning its liberality is not only in it self an un-Christian temper but such as is the root and cause of a life wholly un-Christian and unholy Of these in their order 1. To have a liberal mind c. That the throwing of this earth out of the heart is a most hopeful way of making the man clean and pure we have most pregnant Scripture Luke 11. 39 40 41. Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter but your inward part in full of ravening and wickedness Ye fools did not be that made that which is without make that which is within also But rather give alms of such things as you have and behold all things are clean unto you which bears this sene ye hypocritical Pharisees wash yor selve as if a man should wash his vessels the outside of them only leaving the insides of them full of filthiness for thus do ye wash your bodies leaving your souls full of all uncleaness This is an extreme folly for it your outward washings were in obedience to God you would cleanse the insides your hearts and souls as well as your bodies The best way of purifying your selves your estates your meats and drinks c. from all pollution cleaving to them is by works of mercy and liberal alms gifts and not by washing pots and vessels Thy broken meats thy scraps thy charities shall cleanse thy platters more than washing them shall do alms shall make all things clean But how this To cleanse hath two aspects either on the guilt of past actions or on the habits and dispositions to future commissions and is to cleanse us from the evil that we have don or to make us clean from those vices that were in us and which would make us do more evil the first of these is don by Repentance not by Alms. Indeed the Wise man saies the alms of a man is as a signet with the Lord and he will keep the good deeds of a man as the apple of an eie and give repentance to his sons and daughters Ecclesiasticus 17. 22. the happiest way of purchase for a family in the world The give to children an estate perchance is but to give an instrument of vice bestow the means of sining on them at best 't is but to leave them pomp and superfluity but to give Repenetance to them is to give security of everlasting blessedness this is as it were to entail Heaven on ones children But this is not the thing we mean we are to see how Alms should make us clean from vice It is observ'd by a Reverend Expositor that our Savior speaking Syriack useth a word for alms which in that language and Arabick signifies cleansing that is give Alms which as it comes from a word that signifies to cleanse so all shall be clean to you and they give this reason of the notion they derive Alams from a word that signifies to cleanse quod opes ab inquinamento animum ab avaritiae sordibus purgat because 1. Alms purgeth our wealth from the pollution and filthiness that adheres to it As among the Jews it was not lawful for any man to use the increase of his own land or cattle to eat part of his own harvest nor feed on his own vineyard or imploy the profits of any one beast of his own herd or flock till he had given up to God the first-born of that beast offered the first fruits every year of his fruit-yards and dedicated a first sheaf of his harvest this must sanctify all the rest which till then was unclean not to be used by him to this it seems our Savior do's look in his direction There is an unclean tacke in every thing that comes from earth it do's derive a soil and
as the Swine were drowned on the one side so two men possessed with Devils were recovered and that Christ had don this since his coming thither Hereupon the whole City as being very much concern'd in that which had happen'd came out to meet and see Jesus who did such Miracles and instead of being wrought on by his cure on the men to desire his continuance among them the consideration of the loss of their Swine made them desire and beseech him that he would depart out of their Coasts Behold an equal Enemy to Christ and all his Miracles an Enemy that was too hard for them even a little worldly advantage The Senate of Hell hath no project like this to keep out Religion as this making Religion thwart an interest rather no Christianity than abate gain or greatness or any earthly satisfaction rather the Swine than Christ himself But we have a worse instance yet than this and more comprehensive as to our purpose An evil eie could not endure to see the Son of God alive and when the second Person of the Godhead was to be betraied and crucified the Devil had no other passion to employ on that design but these same discontent and envy and a greedy mind and all these but at little trifles We find that Judas bore the purse and S. John saies that he robb'd it John 12. 6. was deceitful in the discharge of his office of relieving the poor Now it happen'd that a woman spent a box of precious ointment upon Christ at which Judas was discontent and envied it his Master Matt. 16. 8. Mark 14. 4 5. he murmur'd and had indignation at it saies the places his evil eie could not endure to see such a sum should pass his purse of which yet he could have purloin'd but very little for the sum was not great and missing that for very envy for it was immediatly upon it Mark 14. 10. his own covetous heart by the Devil's suggestion put him upon his project of gain to make some advantage by delivering Christ to the hands of the Jews and upon his consenting to this suggestion the Devil was permitted by God to have this power over him to enter into him John 13. 2. and doing so incited him to make a bargain with the Rulers of the Sanhedrim their great Council and with their Officers to deliver up Jesus unto them and he yielding to his incitation and after Christ's talking with him and telling him distinctly of it and the sin and danger attending it Mark 14. 21. and his not yet relenting the Devil entred into him again more forcibly than before John 13. 27. hurried him to the speedy execution and he went and covenanted with them that he should have thirty shekels Matt. 26. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 22. 6. and thanked them altho it were a low and a vile sum as could be the price of a slave Exod. 21. 32. yet Judas thankt them for the offer so covetous he was and glad of an occasion to get mony We see the Devil enters at an evil eie if that be envious Satan gets in strait at that eie himself in person and he possesses hearts set upon gain and then no wonder if the Kingdom of darkness be in such an heart when as the King of Hell the Devil dwells there Satan entred into him and when he was there what design hath he to fill an heart with nothing but that of getting mony this is effect enough of his possession The Devil hath don work enough in such a heart as he is entred into really if he but make it set upon desire of mony tho it be but a trifle of gain but three pounds fifteen shillings But Lord God what will not a worldly heart adventure on what will not a mind undertake which envies at another and is greedy for it self When such an one did set Judas upon betraying Christ for almost nothing one vanity one sport one dress one sin's engagement to damnation costs a man more than what an envious covetous Soul did sell the Son of God the Ransom of Mankind the price of all the Souls in the whole world for yea and was thankful for it too so low so fordid and so base a soul it is that loves increase And now my Brethren there is no need that I should tell you that you must bring no evil eie to the Lord's Table to see his body crucified and his bloud poured out in the Sacrament no discontents no murmurs no envious intentions nor covetous desires must come near that for they were these betraied him If such a soul come thither Judas is there again the things that sold him come again to tear his body and to shed his bloud And do you think that such shall be receiv'd and entertain'd by Christ Oh no the bread of the Sacrament will be their Sop and not Christ but the Devil enters into such Oh sure no heart so fit to come to that same feast as the charitable those that feed him he will feed and I could tell you charity the offertory I mean an offering for the poor was used as an essential part of the Sacrament and was a service of so high esteem that preparation was requir'd for it as for the Sacrament and by the first Councils men guilty of gross sins might not offer their charities would not be receiv'd by the Church Yea and there was an excommunication from this duty and to be excluded from bringing their gifts for the poor was a greater censure than to be shut out from the Sermon or the Praiers But these are things our world do's not take notice of nor will understand to be censur'd from liberality and to be excommunicate from bounty and that receiving of mens alms should be a grace and an indulgence to the givers are talks that men now have no notions of nor much care for But let them be sure no time so proper for our relieving the members of Christ as when the body of Christ is relieving us to life eternal no occasion more urgent for us to contribute towards the clothing of the naked body of Christ than when Christ is clothing us with the crimson glorious garment of his Righteousness no opportunity more pressing than this to visit his sick members than when he administring to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing do's preach Charity like a Sacrament nor no Sacrament more than this at the time of his Incarnation when the Son of God did so exhaust himself for us as to emty immensity of God-head into a span of weak poor helpless flesh to become really one of the meanest objects of compassion one that had no revenue in the world but Charity for while he liv'd he had not an hole to put his head in nor when he died a grave to put his body in but as thro all his life his sustenance was alms so at his death his burying place was alms too and yet this was
let their strictnesses take in some temporal aim besides as Reputation with their Party or getting Praise or Wealth they serve Mammon or Fame with Gods Religion and make the very Worship of the Lord be the Idolatry of Covetousness or of Honour If Jehu in his Executions on Ahab and his Family intend the cutting off the Regal Line as well as Baals worship and with their Blood to purple his own Royalty though God did bid him shed that blood yet does it stain his Soul with crimson guilt and God will punish him for his Obedience I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the House of Jehu Hos. i. 4. But he that lets a vicious aim mix with his Vertue and does good to an ill end addresses Gods Religion to the Devil and makes Christ minister to Belial he does sin multipliedly both in his vicious intention and in debauching Vertue to serve Vice and he might much more innocently not have been Pious Neither is that Vertue or Heart sincere whose intentions are not purely and meerly vertuous but intend to compass some Religious end by means that are not lawful For such intentions are not clean but mixt with Vice and 't is sure I cannot please God with such kind of holy meanings If Saul will sacrifice with the Sheep and Oxen he was bid to destroy his very worship loseth him the Throne of Israel Nor an I serve God with such Pieties God never does require an action which he sees I cannot compass without sin for he requires no man to sin for that were to command me to break his Commands and I were bound to disobey him in obedience to him Shall I speak wickedly for God saith Job and then shall I do so Such Religious intentions the justice of those ends will never qualifie me for Gods goodness when it but makes Damnation just to me for so S. Paul affirms Rom. iii. 5 6 7 8. In fine if there be any wickedness in the heart it gives so foul a tincture to whatever pious actions we perform that they become sin to us 'T is true Prayer is as the Incense David says and the lifting up of our hands is like the Evening Sacrifice but if the heart of him that Prays have any heats of Malice in it truly that man does light his Incense with strange fire kindles his sacrifice with the flames of Hell for so S. James does call those heats He that gives God any of his performances and hath a naughty Heart like Nadab and Abihu he presents his Offering in an unhallowed Censer and all his holy worship will get nothing else from Heaven for him but a consuming fire as theirs did He that will offer any thing to God must take a care it be not tainted with such mixtures which spoil all the Religion making it not sincere and also spoil the Heart by making it not clean and undefiled The last remaining sense A Clean and undefiled Heart Of those things which our Saviour says defile the man some are meerly sins of the Heart such as may be consummated within the Soul and for the perpetration of which a spirit is sufficient to it self such are Pride especially spiritual pride the sin of those that think none holy as themselves and cast the black doom of Reprobation upon all that do not comply with their Opinions and interests such also are uncontentedness with our estates inward repinings at the dispositions of Providence concerning us black malice bitter envyings Now in these as the mind does need no outward members to consummate them requires no accessary Organs to work them out so neither does it require any outward accessary guilt to make them liable to condemnation we know 't was one sin of the spirit onely that made Angels Devils If a foul body be abominable to the Lord shall a foul spirit be less odious he that defiles his Soul offends God in a much nearer concern of his because that speaks nearer relation to him than the Body this was only his workmanship made out of Earth the Spirit was created out of himself a foul body is but filthy Clay but he that does pollute his Soul does putresie the Breath of God and stains a beam of the Divinity The other sort of things that are said to come from the Heart and to Defile are those which S. Paul calls works of the Flesh such as if they be committed must be committed outwardly Murders Drunkenness Revellings Revenge Wrath and Contentions Seditions Factions Schisms all Vncleannesses c. In these indeed the Heart can be but partial Actor the utmost it can do is to desire and to intend them and to contrive and manage the designs of compassing them which yet Providence or the Innocence of others may put out of the reach of mans power or his own temporal fears may make him not dare to set upon them though he do cherish the desires Now if they be obstructed from committing most men use to conclude gently of their guilts while they do keep within the Heart the Execution of them is the onely thing that does look mortal and till the sin be perfected there is no death in it And truly I confess that as it happens many times on a sudden surprize of soul when a bright gilded temptation strikes the heart and dazles the mind we see that the Will rushes on it instantly consents and wishes heartily yet within a while the Spirit does recover out of the surprize puts by the thrusts of fancy and the stabs of the temptation and that Will languishes and dies like a velleity as if it had been nothing but a woulding and now the man would not by any means consent to the commission In this case though there be a guilt to be repented of and cleansed with many tears yet this is Innocence in the comparison but if the Will purpose contrive and do its utmost it is the same to the man as if he had committed 'T were easie to demonstrate this that whatsoever evil thing a man intends and does fixedly resolve he is guilty of though he do nothing or though the thing he chance to do be never so much lawful Those sayings of St. Paul I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is no meat unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean Rom. xiv 14. and he that doubteth is damned if he eat ver 23. These could have no truth in them unless the heart by choosing and pursuing to the utmost any thing that it does judg unlawful incurr'd the guilt of that unlawfulness even to Damnation and all that meerly by it self without the Action which in that case had nothing sinful in it A weight that is upheld by a mans hand and otherwise would rush down to the earth does surely gravitate as much it is as heavy though it do not fall quite down as if it did and were it let alone
Brutes when thou hast set us here to train and discipline our selves for a condition of such glorious Joys as are fit to entertain Souls of Reason with and to make them blessed which to enter upon our Bodies must drop from us our Souls must be clarified from Flesh and Flesh it self refined into Spirit that we should make our selves Antipodes to this walk contrary to all and so debase our spirits as that they are qualified for no other satisfaction but those of dull sense and carnality Adam fell his great Fall by Eating but ever since men fall further by riotous intemperate Eating He fell from Paradise and they from Reason the Man sinks into Beast and the Soul falls into very Flesh and hath no other faculties or appetites but fleshly ones Such people of all others are not to be raised up by Religion their fulness gives no place to that but does exclude it God did complain of this of old Deut. xxxii 15. Jesurun waxed fat and kicked that we may see they want to brutish quality who do allow themselves the appetite of Brutes they that pamper themselves like to fed Horses will also neigh like them and kick even him that fed them thou art waxen fat thou art covered with fatness then he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Salvation When they came once where they did suck honey cut of the Rock and Oyl out of the flinty Rock they could not mind the Rock of their Salvation Indeed this sensuality as it consumes Estates eats Time and all the faculties of the Mind so it devours all Religion too it hath not only a particular opposition to some one duty as the other Vices have but by a direct influence it destroys the whole foundation of Vertue and obedience to God I mean subordination of the lower appetite to Reason and Religion which it renverses quite and breeds an universal cachexy of the Soul as well as Body For ever since Adam did eat of the forbidden Fruit the carnal mind we know is neither subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be as S. Paul says Rom viii 7. because Gods Commands are restraints upon those things which Flesh desires eagerly Now therefore while that Mind is unsubdued it must needs lust against the Spirit for those things that are forbidden nor endure to be limited which he that feeds it is so far from working towards that he does give it still more provocation and more power and makes the Flesh more absolute for it is clear that Plenty does encrease all its desires and their unruliness it ministers both vigor to it by which it is enabled to fulfill its lusts and it ministers aptness and incitation also both by custom of satisfaction and by adding heat which makes it more prone to rebel and more impossible to be kept under The progress of this is apparent in the Scripture Exod. xxxii 6. The People sat down to Eat and Drink and rose up to Play Lusum non denotasset nisi impudicum he means to play the wantons But Jeremy is plainer Chap. v. 7 8. How shall I pardon thee for this thy Children have forsaken me when I had fed them to the full they then committed Adultery and assembled themselves by troops in Harlots houses Nor stays it there but does encrease as well as feed to an Excess we may discern that by the Wisemans Prayer xxiii Ecclesiast 6. O Lord Father and God of my Life Let not the greediness of the Belly not the lust of the Flesh take hold of me and give not over me thy Servant to an impudent mind Gyant-like he had called it in the Verse before and sure the Wiseman in the Proverbs apprehended it as such and dreaded it accordingly as if Bellies full gorg'd were those Mountainr which the Gyants cast up to storm Heaven on He look'd upon this Vice as that which would bid defiance to God and out him and therefore thinks it necessary to beseech the Lord not to afford him so much as would furnish Plenty Prov. xxx 8. Give me not Riches feed me with food convenient for me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an Allowance with no more than is sufficient for me lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord. It seems such persons know no other God besides their Belly nor is it any wonder if a Soul made Flesh cannot well apprehend a Deity that is a Spirit or believe it but thinks all Notions of such beings to be contradiction when once by the suffusions of Carnality all the impressions of a Spirit are wrought out of it self And truly this is the most natural and certain way to become Atheists Whether this time that hath been almost always set aside for strict Severities and to work out Repentance and if it be not so intended now I know not what pretence did call us hither for though there be some relaxation of the severer Dyet of this time sure there is no indulgence of that Penitence which the strictness of this time design'd and let some men talk what they please of the Intention of their Statutes yet these Assemblies certainly were not intended for th◠increase of Cattel and advance of Fishing these were for higher aims of Piety Now whether we employ if so much towards this as to afflict our Souls i. e. our appetites and to revenge our superfluities upon our selves and to teach our desires to be denied Or whether we do teach the Dyet of this season to be but a variety of Luxury and if the Law did not command it and so make it Pressure by giving it the inconvenience and the uneasiness of being duty and obedience our selves could make it be one of the changes of our Vice only another course a diverse service of the same Riot and so defeat the Law by our obedience to it Or whether we do break the Law outright and to our superfluities add disobedience to Authority whether we do the one or other is not for me to say But if the Nation and we our selves have any sins to be repented of and we design this season for that use as sure some season must be so employed and why not this as well rather indeed than any other if we be not of those that would be glad to see all thrown again into Confusion glad to see a return of the same Vengeance as indeed a return of the same sins and the abuse of Mercies seem to call for it while men do live as if they thought God had wrought all these Miracles meerly to give them opportunity to serve their Vices or their other ends to put them in a way to get Places Estates and Dignities and by uncharitable gains hard-hearted griping yea by false unworthy treacherous Arts to heap up Wealth to raise their Families or feed their Lusts These these cry out to God to renew his Commission to the Sword to pass through all
be the Correctives of the distempers of the Soul to quell the risings of the Appetite and Passions and bring the sensual part of us under obedience to Reason and Religion to make all calm and even in us and put us in the frame of Men and Christians of Rational and Pious Creatures And if they do not work this in us if the Soul do not meet in the performances they are not acceptable in themselves at all These are only the mint anise and cummin of our Pieties and as Origen says the condimenta actuum the sauces of Religion not the main standing parts of it which he therefore that offers solitary gives God a Sacrifice of Sallads and thinks that will be a Sin-Offering They do mistake themselves who cherish any hope from having spent a day or Lent of abstinence if the Excesses of their Vices be not made over and evacuated by it if they continue still full gorg'd with their iniquity or who think all is well they have atton'd by having bowed down the head like a bulrush if the Soul were not also humbled in them for as S. Paul does say I may give all my goods to feed the poor yet have no Charity and I may give my body to be burnt yet in those Martyr-fires there may be no heats of Love to God and then all these profit me nothing 1 Cor. xiii 3. So I may chasten my self too and yet yet receive correction or be disciplin'd and then Gods punishments are still due to me That Church indeed which hath found out the easie expiation of Indulgences that hath the Treasure of Christ's merits and all the supererogations of the Saints at her dispose and by Commission can issue them at pleasure out and apply those merits to mens uses not by Sacraments but by a Bull or Brief and not require Gospel conditions of Faith and Repentance in the Persons that receive them but visiting a Church in Rome ascending the steps in such a Chappel in the Lateran on such a day shall give a plenary remission from sin and punishment the saying of such a Prayer over daily shall do it for fourscore thousand years could they but make a Lease for men to live and sin out the indulgence too that would get them good store of Chapmen that Church I say may give encouragement to hope that God may be compounded with at easie rates that for a Surfeit I may give a Meal and God will pardon it and let me have Wine too into the bargain for they allow afflicting of our Souls in Wine that some weeks change of Dyet may go for a change of Life for indeed these come up somewhat nearer the just value than some of their Prices But though there be all the reason in the World they should let men out of Purgatory on what condition they please when themselves onely put them in and make the breath of a few noster's quite blow out those flames which burn no where but in their Doctrines Yet when without any commission from Christ they make Attrition able to secure men from Hell and an Indulgence able to release them out of Purgatory when they make new conditions of Pardon that is new Gospel new ways of application of Christs Merits and though our Saviour God when he found in his heart to dye for us yet in the Agonies of his Compassion could not find in his heart to give us easier terms of Life than such as do require Contrition Humiliation and Amendment which they commute so cheaply with his Vicar We justly stand astonish'd at such usurpation on Christ's Blood and Merits that does assign them at these rates I make no question but easie expiations get them many Converts Rome from its first foundation grew from being an Asylum to the dissolute but they that go away upon such hopes 't is to be feared that easiness betrays them into sins from which those Expiations cannot rescue them and at once makes them Proselytes to Rome and Hell Nor are our trusts much more secure if we rely upon our opus operatum too our little outward strictnesses unless the Soul be engag'd and except there be inward life of Religion all those will not avail If I deny my self my meals and give my self my sins that is so far from expiation that it aggravates I am an argument against my self that my crimes are incorrigible when I will have them though I cut off the Instruments and foments of them and though I meddle not with the Temptation yet I seize the sin What S. Austin does say of Alms In meliùs vita mutanda per eleemosynas de peccatis praeteritis propitiandus est Deus non ad hoc emendus quodammodò ut semper liceat impune peccare This is applicable to these performances also our lives must be Reformed and so on that Repentance and these strictnesses God will be reconciled and our offences done away but he will not be brib'd by these to let us alone in them he is not gratified by such performances so as to wink at Vices for their sakes and suffer us in our Rebellions upon such compositions as these take a Reward to spare the Guilt Nor is he such a soft and easie God as to take them for payment of that infinite Debt we owe that which he bought off with the Blood of God shall not be ours at such unworthy prices The Prophet Micah seeking for a Present to appease him with rejects all the Jewish rites though God prescrib'd them as insufficient and in them all things of the like external kind Mic. vi 6 7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and How my self before the most high God shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousand Rivers of Oyl shall I give my first-born for my Transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul If I do offer up whole Hecatombs to God will that atone for having offered up too plentifully to my Genius Or if I do remove my Riots from my Table to the Altar and change my few extravagant Dishes into whole Herds of thousand Sacrifices shall I by doing so remove the guilt too of my Luxuries If I give God ten thousand Rivers for my overflowing Cups will the Intemperance be wash'd away in those Or shall I think to expiate an Adultery with a Child and for that momentary and unclean delight give up the lovely and first issue of my lawful Bed And who will be content to be his own Priest in such manner to pay such Sacrifices for sins But yet that will not do as it cost more to Redeem Souls which not Rivers of Oyl can cleanse but streams must flow out of the Heart of Christ to do it nor the fruit of Mans body make a satisfaction for but the eternally begotten Son of the Divinity and none but the first born of
the rest delivered up to Satan alas what part would Christ have left of his own Body Sed illos defendit numerus junctaeque umbone phalanges and that I fear too in more senses than the Poet means Therefore I shall not urge the Churches Wish but onely see whether the Statute in the Text says any thing to this and whether the for ever do reach us Which is my Third and last Enquiry Thirdly Divers of the Jews Rites are said to be and be prescribed for ever although those very Rites and the whole oeconomy of their Covenant were to be chang'd and cease among other Reasons as the Fathers say because they foresignifie and point at things in the new Covenant which were to last till Covenants and Rites shall be no more and so their meaning and signification was to be for ever Now truly that their Expiation Performances those which I am upon did so the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is employ'd to prove the Margin of your Bibles in this Chapter so refer you to the places that I shall not need to make it out Christ did fulfill the Temple and the Altar part yea and the refuse outcast part of the Atonement satisfied the Religion and the contempt of that days Offices He was the whole true Expiation Now does this Expiation as theirs did require afflicting of the Soul in its attendance or was that but a Ceremony of their Rite and though a Jew must mourn and Fast to see his sin killing a Beast and when he does behold his wickedness eating up a Goat for a Sin-offering he must deny himself his daily bread and suffer thirst if his Iniquities drink but the blood of Bullocks yet when we behold ours embrew themselves in the Blood of the Son of God not onely lay hands and Confessions on his Head but drive Thorns into it make him cry out almost despair and Die we need not be concern'd so much as to do ought of that either in order to the better Celebration of that Expiation or on the very day of it Indeed if we consider most mens practices it would appear most probable that if we were to expiate our sins as the Jews did by sacrificing of our Flocks not of our Jesus those satisfactions would more afflict our Souls and more restrain our Vices than that which was made for us by the Death of Christ and how can this be rectified unless by some severities upon our selves we give our selves a piercing sense of what our sin deserves and grateful apprehensions of what our Surety suffer'd for us When in sad private earnest I have thought fit to Afflict my Soul with some austere mortifications and when my fainting Spirits are scarce able to sustain my Body that sinks under the load of it self then I may have some tender apprehensions of that weight that sunk the Son of God and 't was my weight that he fell under But he that cannot think fit to revenge a year of follies and of Vices with a few weeks severer life sure thinks his Saviour suffered much in vain quorsum perditio haec why must the Blood of God be paid for sin when I cannot afford a little self-denial for it Why such great Agonies of the Holy Jesus when I cannot find in my heart to bear a little strictness for it But I could easily deduce were I not to suppose it done before that sure as if the Church had thought a Statute had annext these two for ever they have been joyn'd from the beginnings of our Christianity it was the Fast that did attend our Saviours sufferings that in part caused the Contest about Easter which Polycarpe S. John's Disciple manag'd and then there was a Fast so soon and he that tells us this Irenaeus Scholar to that Polycarpe says some observ'd it many days some forty days also if we can take the Antient Ruffinus's authority but for a Comma And if the Antient Fathers do expound aright Christ himself thought that men were interested so much in his Death that they would Fast by reason of it When the Bridegroom is taken from them then shall they Fast in those days Upon which words they say the Season was determin'd to this Duty by the Gospel But they may say so who knew how to persuade men to take up restraints of strictest discipline and of severest Piety But we cannot engage them into Order or from Scandal they made them fast we cannot make them temperate Blessed Saviour what kind of Christians didst thou hope for thy Disciples of whom thou wer't so confident they would so concern themselves in thy Passion as to Fast because of it when in our times Christians will not be kept from their Excesses by it not in those days of Fasting which thy Primitive followers did Celebrate with abstinencies that did almost mortifie indeed and slay the Body of Flesh as well as Sin and we in imitation of them in answer of thy confidences will not abate a Meal nor an intemperance will eat and Riot too and make a Lent of Bacchanals Thus we prepare load for thy Day of Passion sin on to add weight to thy Cross and yet we our selves will not be humbled under them It is in vain to tell men thou expectest they should mortifie that it will spirit their Repentance for they will have no kind of Penitence for sin but such as will let them return to sin again suffer no discipline with which their Vices too cannot consist for they can scarce live if they make not themselves chearful with them even in this time of Sadness and in sight of the Memorial of thy sufferings for them Indeed when I consider how this Season is hodg'd in from Vice by all Gods Indignation threatned at first suffered at last pronounc'd in Commination executed in Passion Ashwednesday gave us all Gods Curses against Sinners all which Good Friday shews inflicted on our Saviour Thus we began Cursed are the Vnmerciful the Fornicators and Adulterers the Covetous persons Worshippers of Images Slanderers Drunkards and Extortioners and we shall see the Son of God made this Curse for them yea we our selves said Amen to all as testifying that that Curse is due to all When I consider this I say I cannot choose but be astonish'd to behold how men can break through all Gods Curses and their own to get at Vice first seal Gods Maledictions then provoke and incur them instantly as if they lov'd and would commit a Rape upon Perdition as if because men have so long in Oaths beg'd God to damn them and he hath not done it yet they would now do it in their Prayers too make their Devotions as well as Imprecations consign them to the wrath of God He that does love cursing thus in the Passive sense surely as David says it shall come unto him it shall be unto him as the Garment that covereth him it shall enter into his bowels like Water and like Oyl into his
of his Son who useth all the artifice of Words affirmative and negative to tell us so as if on purpose to preclude all doubt and subterfuge calls it Eternal fire and Eternal punishment where their worm dieth not their fire is not quenched Torment for ever and ever and the like Your Faith and certainty of which is as strong as your Christianity and therefore by attempting any farther proof of this to imply there is reason and necessity for doing so were to suppose my Hearers Infidels But then this being granted that such is the Sinners Fate to lay down positively that it is his Choyce and that he doth resolve for Death is to suppose them worse than Infidels more than irrational and brutish Beasts cannot so desire against the possibilities of Appetite break all the forces and instincts of Nature as to will destruction and choose misery Yet that the Sinner does so is the ground of Gods Expostulation here Why will you dye David enquires as if it were a Prodigy to find What man is he that lusteth to Live And sure the vicious man does not for Wisdom that is Virtue says He that sinneth against me woundeth his own Soul and all they that hate me love death Prov. viii 36. And 't is most evident that they who eagerly and out of vehement affection pursue and seize those things to which they know destruction is annex'd inseparably they love and choose destruction though not for it self yet for the sake of that to which it clings He that is certain such a Potion howsoever sweetned and made palatable is compounded with the juice of deadly Nightshade if notwithstanding he will have the Poisonous draught it is apparent he resolves to dye And that I may evince this is a setled obstinate incorrigible resolution in him and by what ways and steps it comes to be so I will lay before you the violent courses he does take to break through difficulties and obstructions that would trash and hinder him And when the avenues to Death are strongly guarded how he storms and forces them overcomes all resistance possible that he may seize on Sin and Death And First When such persons have entred the Profession of Christianity in Baptism and by early engagements tyed themselves to the observation of its duties if Principles of probity in Nature fomented by others instill'd with Education have made impressions of duty on the mind and wrought a reverence and awe of God and of Religion which is a fence about them and does keep off Vice by making it seem strange uncouth and difficult while these fears and aversations are rooted in them why then the first thing that they do as soon as Youth and the Temptations do stir within them is to poyson these their own Principles by evil Conversation and from that and Example take infusions which shall impregnate them with humours of being in the fashion of the World Thus they labour to strangle the then troublesom modesties of Nature and of Virtuous breeding thus they look out ill Company to infect themselves And surely they that seek the Plague and run into infection we have cause to fear they have a Resolution to dye But Secondly If notwithstanding this in the first practices of Vice their former Principles stir and ferment within and fret the Conscience set that on working why then if the sin sting gently do but prick the heart and make an out-let for a little gush of Sorrow then in spight of Scripture they do teach themselves to think that grief Repentance and by the help of that conceit this sorrow cools and doth allay the swelling of the mind washes away the guilt and thought of the commission they have been sad and they believe repented as if those stings opened the fountain for transgression and those little wounds did flow with Balsom for themselves And by this means that sting of the old Serpent sin while it pretends to cure by hurting thus proves indeed the Tempter to go on For if this be all why should a man renounce all the Contents and satisfactions of his Inclinations and mortifie and break his nature to avoid a thing which is so easily repented for No if it be no worse they can receive this Serpent in their bosom dare meet his sting and run upon these wounds and they do so till the frequent pungencies and cicatrices have made the Conscience callous and insensible the heart hardned But if their first essays of sin were made unfortunate by Notoreity or some unhappy circumstance and so the wound were deep and the Conscience troublesom and restless because this is very uneasie these inward groans make discord in their chearful airs make their life harsh they therefore find it necessary to confront the shame with Courage of iniquity go boldly on that so they may outlook it fear their own Conscience that its wounds may not bleed And as those Fiends of Men who Sacrific'd their Children in the fire to Moloch that they might not hear their Infants shreek nor their own Bowels croak had noises made with Timbrels to out-voice them So these to drown the cries and howlings of their wounded mind put themselves in perpetual hurry of divertisement and Vice make Tophet about themselves and with the noise of Ryots overcome all other because they will not hearken to those groans that call for the Physician of Souls and then sure these resolve to dye Nay if this will not keep them quiet you may see them sometimes ruffle with their own Consciences desire present Convictions in the very instant of Commission men so set on Death that they Condemn themselves in that which they allow And though a man would think there should be little satisfaction in those pleasures which Condemnation thrusts it self into and which have an alloy of so sad apprehensions yet such are it seems the satisfactions of sin For while it slabs and gashes He brave Hero of Iniquity can charge the wounds and take the Vice Yea Thirdly though the Lord himself appear and take part in the Quarrel joyn with our Principles and Conscience against the sin and with importunate Calls alarm us give us no rest ordain a Function of men by whom he does beseech us dresses their Messages with Promises of that which God is blessed in and arms them too with Terrors such as Devils tremble at and joyns his Holy Spirit too that Power of the Highest sends him in Tongues of Fire that he also may Preach this to our very Hearts and fright us with more flame And yet the Sinner breaks these strengths and vanquishes the Arts and strivings of Divine Compassion If these Embassadors speak Charms it is but what God tells our Prophet in this Chapter ver 32. And lo thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an Instrument And it does dye like that as it there follows They hear thy
words but they do them not And if they flash in Hell against their Vices in torrents of threatning Scripture they concern themselves no more than they would in the story of a new Eruption of Mount Aetna or Vesuvius Yea they do quench the Spirit and his fires do not like the deaf Adder stop their ears against his whisperings and the charms of Heaven that were a weaker and less valiant guilt but are Religious in hearing them curious that they may be spoke with all advantages to make it harder not to yield and live that so they may express more resolution to perish and with more courage and solemnity may sin and dye Nay more when God hath found an Art to draw themselves into a League and Combination against their Vices bound them in Sacraments to Virtue made them enter a Covenant of Piety and seal it in the Blood of God and by that foederal Rite with hands lift up and seizing on Christ's Body and with holy Vows oblige themselves to the performances or to the Threats of Gospel which they see executed in that Sacrament before their eyes see there death is the wages of iniquity they shew themselves its damned consequences while they behold it tear Christ's Body spill his Blood and Crucifie the Son of God yet neither will this frightful spectacle nor their own ties hold them from sin and ruine they break these bonds asunder to get at them The Wiseman says that wicked men seek death and make a Covenant with it and so it seems But sure they are strange wilful men that seek it at Gods Table in the Bread of Life that will wade through an Ocean of mercy to get at Perdition and find it in the Blood of Christ will drink Damnation in the Cup of blessing men that poyson Salvation to themselves They that contract thus for Destruction and tye it to them at the Altar with such sacred Rites and Articles are sure resolv'd and love to dye Fourthly God had provided other Guards to secure men from sin and Death the Censures of the Church of which this Time was the great Season and the discipline of abstinence we now use is a piteous relique all that the World will bear it seem But as the Lord appointed them they were so close a fence that our Saviour calls them Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as if they lock'd us in the Path of Piety and Life and we must pick or break all that the Key of Heaven can make fast burst Locks as well as Vows before we can get out have liberty to sin God having bounded in the Christians race as that among the Grecians was which had a River on one side and Swords points all along the other so that Destruction dwelt about it on the borders And God hath mounded ours with the River of Hell the Lake of Fire and with these spiritual Swords as S. Cyprian and S. Hierome call the Censures But yet a Mound too weak alas to stand the Resolution and assaults of Vices now adays which do not onely make great breaches in the Fence but have quite thrown it down and slighted it and the Church dares not set it up again should she attempt it they would scoff it down Men will endure no bar in the way to Perdition they will have liberty of Ruine will not be guarded from it so far from brooking Censures they will suffer no Reproof nor Admonition not suffer one word betwixt them and Death eternal But Fifthly Though we will not let Almighty God restrain us with his Censures yet he will do it with his Rod and set the sharp stakes of Affliction in our walk to keep us in thus he makes sins sometimes inflict themselves and then we straight resolve to break off from them and while we suffer shame and feel destruction in the Vice we shrink and uncling And now the Sinner would not dye especially if his Precipitance have thrown him to the confines of the grave and while he took his full careers of Vice the fury of his course did drive him to the ports of Ruine and Death seemed to make close and most astonishing approaches when standing on the brink of the Abyss he takes a prospect of the dismal state that must receive him and his Vices then he trembles and flyes his apprehensions swoon his Soul hath dying qualms caused as much by the Nausea of sin as by the fear of Hell he is in agonies of passion and of Prayer both against his former courses he never will come near them more and now sure God hath catch'd him and his will is wholly bent another way now he will live the new life if God will grant him any But alas have we never seen when God hath done this for him stretch'd out his Arm of Power hal'd him from the brow of the Pit and set him further off how he does turn and drive on furiously in the very same path that leads to the same Ruine and he recovers into death eternal And now this Will is grown too strong for the Almighties powerful methods and frustrates the whole Counsel of God for his Salvation neglects his Calls and Importunacies whereby he warns him to consult his safety to make use of Grace in time not to harden his heart against his own mercies and perish in despight of mercy And when he can reject Gods Graces and his Judgments thus defie his Conscience and his own Experience too there is but one thing left wherein this Resolution can shew its courage and that is Sixthly His own present Interests All which the Sinner can break through and despise to get at Death It is so usual to see any of the gross wasting Vices when it is once espoused murder the Reputation and all those great concerns that do depend upon a mans Esteem eat out his Wealth and Understanding make him pursue pernicious ways and Counsels besot him and enslave him fill his life with disquiet shame and neediness and the sad consequents of that Contempt and all that 's Miserable and unpitied in this Life and yet the sin with all these disadvantages is lovely not to be divorc'd nor torn off from him that I were vain should I attempt to prove a thing so obvious I shall give but one instance of the power of the Will the violence and fury of its inclinations to Ruine The man who for anothers inadvertency possibly such as their own rules of Honour will not judg affront yea sometimes without any shadow of a provocation meerly becaue he will be rude does that upon which they must call one another to account and to their last account indeed at Gods dread Judgment-seat whither when he hath sacrific'd two Families it may be all their hopes and comforts in this Life two Souls which cost the Blood of God having assaulted Death when it was arm'd and at his heart and charged Damnation to take Hell by Violence he comes with his own
and deprecates and when he durst not meet the apprehensions wilt thou stand the storm see what a sting death hath when it makes out-lets for such clots and globes of Blood and stings the Soul so too that it pours out it self in Sweat And then he sinks again under the deprecation of it and prays that that Cup may pass from him Blessed Saviour when thou hadst just now made thy Death thy Legacy thy Sacrament dost thou intreat to scape this death if this Cup pass from thee what will the Cup of Blessing profit us thou hadst but now bequeathed a Cup to us which was the New Testament in thy Blood and now wilt thou not shed that Blood But dost thou refuse thy Cup Oh 't was a Cup of deadly Wine red with God Indignation poison'd with Sin And can the Sinner thirst for the Abyss of this the Lake that hath no bottom and when he goes again and prays the same words the third time be yet not onely so supine as not ask to scape it seldom and very sleight in any Prayer or wish against it but also so resolv'd to have it as to gape that he may swill it down to everlastingness Follow him from that Garden and you see him even dying under his Cross he cannot bear that when it is laden with sin who yet upholdeth all things by the word of his Power 'T is said the time will come when the Sinner will cry out to the Hills to fall on him any weight but that of iniquity the burden of that is intolerable 't is easier for him to bear a Mountain than a Vice and yet Christ saith he hath a beam in his Eye and can he shrink at any weight whose part that is most sensible tender to an expression can bear that which shoulders must fall under onely Pillars can sustain Oh yes that which did sink the shoulders of Omnipotence Then the Mountains rather and the Rocks to cover but in vain they will not cover for thy very Groans will rent them Christ's were so sad that his did they tore the Rocks and that which is much more inflexible the Monuments Death started at them and the bonds of the Grave loosened and the Dust was frighted into Resurrection and more the Hypostatick Union seem'd rent by them the God to have forsaken his own Person And can the Sinner hope to stand this shock will the courage of his Iniquity make his heart harder than those Rocks more insensible than the Grave and better able to endure than he that was a God and will you die into this state eternally which it was necessary for him to have the assistance of Divinity in his Person that he might be able to endure one day and which yet notwithstanding made one day intolerable The sum is this a Person so desiring Death and yet so dreading it and sinking under the essays of it and this Person the Son of God and that dread meerly because there was sin in the Death for if this were not in the cause no Martyr but had born death with more courage but that Son of God all this as it does leave no Reason for the Sinners choice of death Eternal so neither doth it leave a possibility of bearing it And if so give me leave in God's Name to Expostulate the last imployment of these words Why will ye die After this killing Prospect while the damp of it is on you let my Bowels debate with you which yearn more over you than they did over my Beloved Son in whom I was well pleased when I have sent my only Son God one with my own Self to be made Man that he might suffer what was necessary to be suffer'd to preserve you from eternal sufferings when I have laid on him that was brought up with me from everlasting and that was daily my Delight all your Iniquities and my own Indignation that so you might be freed from both When I have found out made an Expiation with which I am more pleased than ever your transgressions offended me which hath quite blotted out your sins and my Displeasure when your Redemption from death is made the Ransom paid the Price is in my hand why do you then refuse your selves your own Eternal Blessedness which was thus dearly purchas'd and is ready for you Why will you seize that Indignation which you are redeemed from and force those sufferings on your selves which have been laid already and inflicted on another 'T is a small thing that you refuse me the return of my Expence that which I gave my Son for but do you renounce Happiness because my Love and Blood is in it and will you die because you may and I desire you should live when my Son went from the essential felicities of my Bosom to embrace Agonies and dy'd for you why will you also die as you have slain his Person will you Crucifie his Kindness too and crucifie your selves rather than have it and having us'd him most despightfully will you therefore use his favours so and not let his Death and Passion do you any good contemn his methods of Salvation his divine Acts of making you for ever Blessed is your Saviour and Life it self so hateful to you and after such Redemption of your persons is there no redemption of your Will from perishing nothing of value that can bribe your choice against it nothing that can betroth you into a desire of Life and take you off from your resolves to die had I set no advantage on the other side if sin had sweetned misery to your Palate it had been no such great despite and contradiction to Appetite but when Heaven and the Joys of God are in the Scale against it to prefer Misery is Wretchless beyond aggravation Oh why will you rather die Those very things that tempt your Wills were they abstracted from the death they do inveigle you into were they sincere and innocent if they were set against that Life that blessed life immortal Life would vanish quite in the comparison when you should see they are but frolicks of delight that never take you but when you are turn'd up to them in moods and fits and the complacencies you take in them are but starts of Appetite that swells and breaks out to them and then falls again and so the pleasures die even in the birth and therefore cannot satisfie indeed do but disquiet an immortal appetite such as man's is so that it were impossible to choose a life these rather although there were no misery annex'd to them if you consider'd For it were to resolve that a few drops were more than an immence Ocean of Delight a Moment longer than Eternity a Part were bigger than the Whole an Atome greater than an Infinite Now there is nothing then that can prefer these to your choice but the Death only and Oh will ye without and against all Temptation Will ye die O thou my Soul take
determination just and necessary But sure when God hath put other needs in my making and hath provided supplies for them those also are as just and necessary objects of desire while they are with and under him But yet he that had brought all his affections into Davids frame might well say he desired nothing upon Earth besides nothing with God for he had weaned his very Flesh and all the craving appetites of Sense from their own objects and had fix'd them upon God in all their strength and vigour My Soul saith he thirsteth for thee elsewhere my Soul gaspeth unto thee even as a thirsty Land and my flesh also longeth after thee Psalm lxiii 1. How My Soul thirsteth for thee with thee indeed is the Well of Life But Thirst is an Appetite gasping a consequent defailance and impatience of the Body to both which the Soul is a meer stranger as it is also to the ways by which the Body does desire â—or the Soul is drawn by moral engagements by persuasions and motives there is place for deliberation and Choice in her Desires she can demur in her pursuits divert her Inclinations and quench a Desire with a Consideration but the Flesh pursues in a more impulsive manner is drawn and spurr'd on by such impetuous propensions as are founded in matter You can no more persuade a thirsty Palate not to thirst than you can woo a falling Stone to stay its hast or invite it to turn aside from its direction to the Center Yea but the Soul also exerts it self in all these appetites of flesh and matter and with all their violence when it looks on God when we have once had a taste or when indeed we but discern our needs of him whether our Temporal or Spiritual those of the Soul or Flesh all the desires of both then fly at him and with a tendency most close and uncontrollable then nothing besides him For all the appetites of Body croud into the Soul that they may catch at God that Thirsts and Gaspes And the Soul does put on the violent impetuous agitations of the Bodies Appetites My Soul thirsteth for thee and my Flesh also longeth after thee What Longing is whether an Appetite or Passion of the Flesh or Mind whose signatures are more express indeed upon the Flesh than those of any other yet whose impulses are so quick and so surprizing as they were Spirit I shall not now enquire but sure if the Flesh long it should be for some carnal Object for that is proportion'd to it Flesh and the Creature use to close indeed and they imbibe each other as if they knew to fill and satisfie each other yea some there are that have brought down their Souls to the propensions of Flesh have given to their very Spirits an infusion of carnality for they mind onely fleshly things But by the rates of David's practice it should seem the pious man does the just contrary sublimes his Flesh into a Soul drains all the carnal Appetites out of it weans it from all its own desires and teacheth it those of the Spirit onely makes it long for God Now he whose flesh is defaecated thus and as it were inur'd to the condition which it shall put on when it awakes from its corruption as if it were already in that place whose happiness and desires have no use of Body and were in that state where their Bodies neither hunger or thirst for these he hath translated from his flesh 't is his Soul onely thirsts and that for God As if he were indeed like Angels now how can this man desire any thing on Earth besides the Lord who is and does already what they are and do in Heaven where we have nothing but thee But notwithstanding this exalted temper though we should arrive at this Seraphick constitution of desires and though God hath now made himself to us the proper object of these appetites for since God struck the Rock for us which Rock was Christ since the true Bread came down from Heaven if our Flesh long for God there is a satisfaction ready he hath made his Flesh be meat indeed if our Souls thirst for God he can furnish drink for a Soul the Blood of God But yet while this Soul sojourns in this earthly Tabernacle the man will still want other supplies and may be not desire them or can he choose indeed For they that tell us stories of some men whose hungers and thirsts after God as they devour'd all other desires in them so also gave themselves no other satisfaction but panem Dominum that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Supersubstantial daily Bread the Lord these men I say would find it hard to make out how bare Species could nourish and sustain a bodily life Yea Christ himself when he was upon the Earth did hunger and although it was his meat to do his Father's Will yet when he was an hungered Angels came and ministred unto him and then may not our earthly needs desire something besides him That while we are upon the Earth all those necessities are in our constitution is certain but that we need not desire for them or any thing besides Him is as certain Because to them that desire him all these things shall be added they are annex'd by Promise Matth vi 33. it is for such to be sollicitous who would have something they must have alone something that cannot come along with God But if I be assur'd that all my needs shall be supply'd in him I need desire nothing besides him now this Promise he must perform for he that when he put Man in a state of Immortality in Paradise provided him a Tree of Life that might for ever furnish and sustain him For that Age also that he does design a man a being for his Service here upon the Earth he must allow him necessaries for his being and his Service otherwise he can nor serve nor be And then if they be certain what need he desire them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Chrysostome These are not objects for our careful wishes but our trusts and confidences we may assure our selves of these if we have him these are his Appendages and then why should I put them with him into my Devotions when my Soul lies gasping towards God in Prayer my desires seizing on his Blessednesses to take them off from him and to make my desires turn aside to little earthly things and fix them there is to affront not my God onely but my Prayer too and when these things are sure seems to betray a mind too Earthly and too apprehensive of these needs Surely I were most strangely necessitous or strangely greedy if both God and that which shall be added to him were not enough for me More wretched or else more unsatisfied than Hell if the Almighty were not sufficient for me if he be my provision then I need desire nothing besides him But yet Necessities will crave Hunger
things that go by in a Whirl-wind come in storm and so they pass away refuse inmortal Hallelujahs for a Song cast away solid Joys and an Eternal weight of Blessedness for froth for the shadow 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 to lies on the other side their Choice 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 undertake 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 mock'd their confidences and desires yet be not onely Infidels to all Gods blessed preparations which they have nor reason nor Experience against but also have no sense nor relish of himself in present Not taste 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 knowledg 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 Vultures Thus Tantalâ—s's riotous hunger that does gnaw his bowels is his Worm that never dies and his intemperate thirst his everlasting burnings and his Water that he cannot reach or taste of is his Lake of fire without Metaphor So that desire alone without its satisfaction is so much of Hell and yet this is the worldly sensual mans estate exactly here on Earth for he hath nothing but desires and lusts and his condition is not easier at all for how is Tantalus more wretched than a Midas or than any covetous wretch who in the midst of affluence and heaps hungers as much as Midas did for meat and for Gold too and an touch neither for his uses so that the Worlds delights are very like the miseries of Hell and men with so much eager and impatient pursuit do but anticipate their torments and invade Damnation here And if the case be so sure there is no great self-denial in our Psalmist here when he resolves to desire nothing upon Earth in comparison of his God 'T is no such glorious conquest of my Appetite to make it not pursue a present Hell and an eternal one annex'd to it before a Saviour Yet the World does so Some there are that desire Money rather and although when Judas did so this desire could not bear it self but cast all back again and though it did disgorge it burst him too the Sin it self supply'd the Law and his guilt was his Execution Yet this will not terrifie men will do the like betray a Master a Saviour and a God onely not for so little money peradventure Others when the Lord paid his own Blood for their Redemption yet if their wrath thirsts for his Blood that does offend them their revenge makes their Enemies the sweeter blood though their own Soul bleed to death in his stream To others the deservings of the Partner of an unclean moment are much greater than all that the Lord Jesus knew to merit at their hands or purchase for them And it is no wonder they are so ungrateful to their Saviour when they are so barbarous to themselves as to choose not to have present Divine Possessions rather than not suffer the vengeance of their own Appetites choose meerly to desire here though that be to do what they do in Hell rather than have in Heaven O thou my Soul if thou wilt needs desire propose at least some satisfaction to thy Appetite do not covet onely needs thirst for a feaver and desire meerly to inflame desire and Torments But seek there where all thy wants will find an infinite happy supply even in thy Saviour covet the riches of his Grace and Goodness thirst for the fountain opened for transgression for the waters of the well of Life desire him that is the desire of all Nations yet why should we desire even him when we have him in Heaven and we have nothing upon Earth left to desire but that God who hath exalted him unto his Kingdom in Heaven would in his due time exalt us also to the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before To whom c. The Seventh SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LENT 1663 4. MARK I. 3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. I Shall not break this single short Command asunder into Parts but shall instead of doing that observe three Advents of our Saviour in this Life before that last to Judgment For each of which as it must concern us there must be preparation made by us In pressing which I do not mean to urge you to do that which none but God can do It is not in man to direct his own ways much less the Lords The very preparations of the Heart are from him Therefore supposing the preventings of his Graces I shall subjoyn that the Comporting with those graces the using of his strengths to the rooting out of our selves all aversation to Virtue and all love of Vice and planting other inclinations even Resolutions of good life is the onely thing that can make way for Christ and for his benefits Now of those Advents the First was when he came Commission'd by God to reveal his Will to propose the Gospel to our belief the coming of Christ as a Prophet which particularly is intended in the Text. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is written prepare ye the way of the Lord. The Second was that coming which the Prophet Isay did foresee and in the astonishment of Vision ask'd Who is this that comes from Edom with dy'd garments from Bozrah travelling in the greatness of his Strength Why is he red in his Apparel and his garments like him that treadeth in the Wine-fat And it was the Prospect of him when he came to tread the Wine-press of the Wrath of God to Sacrifice himself for us upon the Cross his coming as a Priest The Third is when he comes to visit for Iniquity coming
that many Ages prov'd but Centuries of Martyrdom unto that Truth all Torments were more eligible than the belief of this Religion which was confirmed so that against all arts and power of Opposition against the Wit and Fury of the World though all the Subtlety and all the Strength of Earth resisted it yet it over-spread the Universe Besides it is most prudent to believe it too for if there be another World what then There was enough done therefore but Corruptions suffer them not to attend to that which hath been done And 't is no wonder they should do so at this distance for they contrasted with Christs Miracles when present and they were so uneasie under the conviction of them that rather than be prest so by the mighty power of his Works they did design to rid themselves of him that wrought them John xi 47. you may find them strugling with his demonstrations to keep off the Evidence What do we for this man doth many Miracles Yea they do conspire against the Miracles themselves and would put Lazarus also to death because he was raised from the dead they could not let the Evidence and the Conviction live but they must murder that too Nay more as if the pertinacy of their prejudices could do mightier Works than Christ and could controul and were above the power of his Miracles it is said to have bound his hands and he could do no mighty Works at Nazareth because of it Mar. vi 6. At least as saith Theophylact 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he could not do them where men were not capable they should be done So that Christ did pronounce from Reason and Experience If they believe not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead Such an amazing argument might probably astonish but would not convince unless it met with honest inclinations for after the surprize of it were over and had vanish'd then the corruption that Bosom Sophister would stir and goad and urge incessantly so that to ease himself the Man must find out some cross Scruple to weaken the force of that Evidence and the Conviction would vanish like the Ghost And if we should examine the Experience of our selves and others we should find that just according to the rate of virtuous inclinations and dispositions of heart to part with sin so are men prepar'd for the belief of Christ so are their cares and regards of his Religion He that is honestly inclin'd opens his Soul to Christianity for it speaks to his heart 't is right to the grain of his Soul he looks upon the Promises as made to him and lays them up as Gods encouragements of his inclinations every thing in the Gospel fits the temper of his mind And he that is but pretty well disposed that loves Virtue for the most part but does allow himself some one corruption he always hearkens to Religion where it sets it self against those Vices which he hates but as to his own particular evil inclination there he is a little Infidel cannot persuade himself that God will be so stern against a single pleasure that one petty indulgence should be so considerable that it should provoke to those extremities the Bible threatens and can by no means believe S. James that he that offends in one point thus is guilty of all And they upon whose constitutions there are weights and Plummets that incline them to some vicious courses and by loose Education have those pronenesses of temper pamper'd and by having their inclinations follow'd and indulg'd taught them to crave then to get head and to command and then by conversation with others that mind nothing but satisfaction of those bents of the Brute part that allow themselves all the desires of constitution are come to swill the pleasures profits and the Honours that do wait on those practices Or whosoever by whatever steps arrive at an habit of doing thus and a great liking of them and so to improbity of Heart to utter aversations of the strictnesses of Piety all which they have lived so out of 'T is known that not enduring to be bound up in those narrow paths of Piety and Virtue they burst all the Obligations to them seek little things to cavil at or to deride hoping with those their poison'd Arrows through the skirts and the Extreamer parts to send a Wound into the very Vitals of Religion for they aim at the Heart when they pretend to strike only the out Lap of its Garments and to say all at once grow down-right Atheists And though as once at Corinth now again the World by Wisdom knows no God there being Skill and Manage in this Mystery of Infidelity and it requires Study Wit and Parts yet they proceed just by the Method of King David's Fool first he says in his heart there is no God before he say it in his thoughts and Opinions He wishes it and so comes to believe it the Atheism is rooted in the Seat of the Affections and it branches thence into the Mind at least into the Mouth and finding Hell the greatest check to their Delights which they cannot determine with themselves to leave and to repent of therefore because they will not quench it with their tears they study how to put it out with Arguments And meerly for this reason that they will not live like Men they resolve therefore to believe that they shall die like Beasts But alas they must live for ever with the Devil and his Angels it that Christ whom they reject does not lay hold on them and rescue them from thence as he is in his passage to his Cross the next Way we must prepare for him and my next Part. The Solemn days approaching will discover to you this Way namely the Passage from the Garden in Gethsemane to Golgotha There you will see he does begin his Journey with the Amazements of an Agony and ended it in something like the horrors and the outcrys of Despair he travailed under such a load as made his life gush out through all the parts of his whole Body the weight of it did make his Soul faint by the way and when he was upon the Tree crush'd it out and made it expire sooner than the stress of Nature would have done and forc'd it to burst out away in Prayers and strong Cries that so he might sooner escape from under that sad pressure And then do but consider and look on him under that representation which S. Paul does shew of him how all that time that he was creeping under that dire burden in that dolorous way he was meerly pressing on with all the haste he could to overtake us in our course and rescue us from Ruine For that Journey was a Race and we the Prize 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have been laid hold on saith he Phil. iii. 12. laid hold on in the Agonistick sense as in a Race he so expresses it And
most part and purchased by those very means My business is to pull it down from this great height and shew you how to triumph o're these Conquests which my Text says is done by Faith for this is the Victory that overcometh the World even our Faith Which how it does is my second next Enquiry It seems a prejudice to this Assertion of my Text that the great pretenders to Faith the men that lay the whole stress of their Everlasting Being on believing onely have been branded to be very Worldly and the Factions of Godliness were the mysteries and arts of Thriving as if their Faith laid hold indeed upon the Promises of this Life and if it overcame the World it was for them to seize and be possessors of But this is not the Victory my Text secures a Conquest for the Faith onely of Mahomet to make And while Christian Votaries do onely mind such Conquests and are candidates of Turcism do they not call it in and make way for their Sword and their Religion But the Faith that lays hold on Christ's Promises cannot consist with any such affections For since Christ's Promises are made onely to those that overcome all such desires and that do it to the end and none other can be safe It is impossible for him that does not overcome to trust upon those Promises and to apply them to himself by Faith For at once to believe I shall be saved and yet believe those sayings which affirm none such can be saved these are most inconsistent It being then as casie to make contradictions be at peace as Faith and Worldliness they cannot suffer one the other it follows He that hath this Faith in sincerity must needs overcome the World And to shew you in a word how it is done you need not but to consider that Faith is as S. Paul saith the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen Heb. xi 1. Which as the Syriack translates does say that Faith is such a certainty of those things that we hope for as if we actually had them and it is the revelation of those things that are not seen it hath so strong a confidence in God that the Believer assures himself of all Gods Promises and Threats as much as if they were in sight and though we see them through a glass but darkly yet we see them by it 1 Cor. xiii 12. it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It represents the things of which we have no demonstration from Sense or humane reasoning as convincingly to the mind as if they were before our Eyes And it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the substance the subsistence and the very being of things that are not yet in being but in hope So that the Eye of Faith like that of God does see those things that are invisible and futurity is present to it Now by this alone it is of force to break the powers of the World which as we saw while the things of the other World were look'd upon as at a great distance afar off taking advantage of their absence storm'd the mind with present forces and had supplies at hand for fresh assaults so overcame it Whereas had the powers of the World to come been present now by Faith they are made so we see the other which are so inferiour that there is no more comparison than of immensity to a point a moment to Eternity could not stand before them 'T is too notorious that this is the case For should a man cry fire in the House how it had seiz'd the strengths of it were blotting out the glories of it in thick Smoak devouring all their shine in flame we would leave our Devotions our most eager pleasures to prevent this and no speed were swift enough to serve our cares and fears But though a Prophet of the Lord cry Tophet is prepared the pile thereof is Fire and much Wood and the Breath of the Lord like a stream of Brimstone kindling it and do this till his Lungs crack not one heart is mov'd nor brings a drop of tear to quench the flame because these fires are not present as the other neither have men any sense of them were they alike convincing alike present to the apprehension 't were impossible according to what we have demonstrated that the Will in her choices and her aversations where the Objects are of alike kind and have one common measure of their good and evil is determin'd to avoid or take that which appears the greatest always 't were I say impossible not to fly these which the Devils do believe and tremble at with greater dread wherever they appear Now a strong lively Faith must paint them out and shew them in each sin the World insnares into Neither would any of those rotten planks which while the Will does fluctuate betwixt her worldly inclinations and these fears and is toss'd about offer themselves as I declared to you for her to escape upon though she does dash her self upon God's Threats choosing the present sin such as the application of Decrees or Promises made absolutely to himself without any condition confidence in Gods Mercies hopes of Pardon none of these would be security to one that were convinc'd in earnest He that did believe and as it were discern that height which his ambition goads him to aspire to were upon the brink of the bottomless Pit whither when he arriv'd that very sin that tempts him with the glories of the prospect would then tumble him down headlong into that Abyss he would no more dare to ascend it by such false and guilty steps upon such hopes of mercy trusts on Promises or Decrees than he would dare to throw himself off from a Pinacle in confidence God was Almighty and Almerciful able enough and kind enough to stretch out his right hand and catch him in the fall or trusting to that Promise He will give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone Or leaning upon any such Decree as makes the term of life immovable and fatal neither to be hastned or retarded none of these will make him mad enough to break his Neck neither would the same presumptions encourage him to cast away his Soul had he but equal apprehensions of the danger And it is plain all the temptations of the World and all these false encouragements cannot work upon a man when Death once looks him in the Face and the great Champions of Prophaneness are tame then not that God's Threatnings are more true or made more evident to sense or reason than they were before but their Faith is active and they apprehend more strongly then To see my self trampled upon by pride and malice or worse yet begging of him whom my blood it may be help'd to streams of plenty begging like Lazarus the portion of his
hold on any noble part take in some Nerve or Artery then he must cut the thread of Life that cuts it off So he must rent my heart indeed that tears my pleasures from me Life it self does seem to have so little salisfaction without them that it is a death to me to part with them Or else hath the Old Man no Soul is he all Flesh and hath Iniquity debas'd the whole of him so that his very Spirit is become Body of Sin so as that Wickedness should be our very Being be all one with us and I and my corruptions prove denominations of one importance signifie the very same so it is indeed Besides the carnal part that is sold under sin and consequently does deserve the Cross that punishment of Slaves the part also that is in the quite opposite extream that lusts against the flesh that must be made away Be ye 〈◊〉 ansform'd by the renewing of your mind Rom. xii 2. And if there be any sublimer and more deâ—â—â—cated past in that it must submit to the same Fate 〈…〉 in the spirit of your mind Ephes. iv 23. Corruption hath invaded that To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the diviner ruling part is grown a slave to the Beast part of him it hath debauch'd its notions whereby it should discriminate good from evll so that now it can discern no natural difference between them but does measure both meerly by his present inclinations and concerns and the eternal Laws of Honesty are blotted our and principles of interest and irreligion rais'd there in the place and buttress'd by false reasonings and Discourses Now all these Fortresses of Vice that maintain and secure a man in sin must be demolish'd all such imaginations cast down and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and every thought brought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ That Spirit of the mind must be destroyed and we transformed into persons of new notions and reasonings But above all the remaining part of Man his own Will must be mortified which besides its natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by perverse inclinings to sollicitations of flesh is most corrupted and most dangerous in that which way soever it inclines it draws the whole Man after it If any thing in us be crucified in a Conformity to Christ it must be this for in that death wherein Christ offered up himself upon the Cross where although the Divine Nature gave the value 't was onely the Humane Nature made the Offering there it was the crucifying his own Will that above all other the ingredients made his Death a Sacrifice and the price of our Redemption God that had given him his Blood and Life might call for it again when and how he saw good and being due it was not properly a price that could be given him for sin but his free voluntary choice his being willing to endure the Agonies and Contempts of the Cross his stabbing his own natural desires with a resolute determination Not my will but thine be done This his own Will was his own Offering and such is ours if we be Crucified with Christ made conformable to his death if we present our selves a Sacrifice acceptable to the Lord for our will is not given up to him till it do perfectly comport with his but that it cannot do till we renounce our own desires till we have brought our selves to an indifference in outward things to such a resignation as she is storied to have had who being in her Sickness bid to choose whether she rather would have Health or Death made answer Vehementissimè desidero ut non facias voluntatem meam Domine this above all I desire that thou wilt not do my will I would have thee not do what I desire and would have So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole of us the Spirit Soul and Flesh go to make up this Person and the body of Sin is the Old man entire I whole I am nothing but a mass of guilts my Senses are the bands of wickedness that procure for my evil inclinations my members are the weapons of unrighteousness my Body is a Body of Sin and Death and the affections of my Soul are Lusts its faculties are the powers of Sin yea and the Spirit of my mind that Breath of God is putrefied that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Angel-part of me is fall'n and turn'd Apostate and however I be partly Son of Man and partly Son of God yet I am wholly Child of Wrath and so fit to be Crucified Which calls me to the next Enquiry to the nature of the duty here intended I am Crucified What is design'd by it S. Paul does perfectly declare Rom. vi 6. Our old man is crucified with Christ that the body of Sin might be destroyed that we should no longer serve sin So that it means a through Repentance and abandoning of former evil Courses A Duty which there are few men but in some instants of their life think absolutely necessary and persuade themselves they do perform it At some time or other they are forc'd to recollect and grow displeas'd and angry at their sins and have some sad reflections on them beg for mercy and forgiveness and do think of leaving them and when they have return'd to them again they shake the head and chafe and curse at their own weakness and renew their purposes it may be and do this as oft as such a Season as this is or other like occasions suggest it to or move them And with this they satisfie themselves and hope if God do please to take them hence in some such muddy gloomy fit of their Repentance all 's well Now shall we call this being Crucified are there Racks and Tortures in this discipline hath a Spear prick'd them to the heart and no blood nor no water no tears gush out thence hath it made no issue for some hearty Sorrow to purle out Indeed I must confess the Scripture does sometimes word the performance of this Duty in expressions that are not so sower but of an easier importance as first put off the Old Man as if all were but Garment put it off I say not as they strip'd our Saviour in order to his Scourgings and his Cross but intimating to us what an easie thing it is to cast off Sin for them who do begin with it betimes before it get too close to the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Theophyl even as easie as putting off thy Cloaths and thy Repentance is but as thy Shift thy change of life like changing thy Apparel But alas for all the easiness which this expression hints where the sins also lie in the Attire as besides emulation pride vainglory great uncharitableness and inhumanity cruel injustice and oppression often do when many are undone through want of those dues which do furnish other men with the excesses of this
kind when the sins therefore lie in the Attire and they may put them off without a Metaphor yet it is so hard that it cannot be done sometimes the worth of a whole Province hangs upon a slender thread about a Neck a Patrimony thrust upon one joint of one least Finger and these warts of a Rock or a Shell-fish with the appendages eat out Estates and starve poor Creditors for whom indeed they should command these stones to be made bread but that 's a Miracle too stubborn for their Vertue And then how will they proceed to the next expression of this Duty Circumcise your selves to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts Jer. iv 4. These are harder and more bloody words they differ in the pain and anguish that they put us to as much as to uncloath and flea would do It appears indeed this punishment of fleaing often went before the Cross. To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Ctesias of one having his Skin pull'd off he was Crucified And the scourges in some measure did inflict this on our Saviour when they put off his Cloaths they strip'd his Skin also left him no covering but some rags of that which whipping had torn from his flesh Yet this expression sounds harsher when it bids us circumcise the foreskin of our hearts and tear it from thence flea that When long Conversation with the pleasures of a sin hath not onely given them Regallias but hath made them necessary to us so as that we cannot be without them when Custom craves with greater feaver than our thirst when if we want it we have qualms saintings of Soul as if the life were in that blood of the grape when men can part as easily with their own bowels as the Luxuries that feed them if you take away their Dishes then you take their Souls which dwell in them when the sins of the Bed are as neâ—dful and refreshing as the sleeps of it when to bid a man not look not satisfie his lustful eye is every jot as cruel as that other Iâ— thine eye offend thee pluck it out For if he must no more find pleasure in his sight he hath no use of it yea if this be indeed a kindness not to leave him Eyes to be to him the same as Appetite to Tantalus that which he must not satisfie and is his hell 'T is easie if the Lust be got no further than the Eye to pull them out together but if through that it shoot into the Blood and Spirits mix heats with those if it enwrap the heart twist with its strings and warm the Soul with its desires so that it Spirit all the motions all the thoughts and wishes of the heart when it is thus to make the heart to stifle its own motions stab its thoughts and strangle all its wishes to untwist and disentangle and to tear it thence if this be to be Circumcised with the Circumcision of Christ and he that hath not the sign of this the Seal of the New Covenant as he that in the Old had not the other was must be cut off our long habituated hardned Sinners must not think that there is any thing of true Repentance in their easie perfunctory sleight performances there is something like Death in the Duty which yet is required of us farther under variety of more severe expressions for we are bid thirdly to slay the Body of Sin Rom. vi 6. to mortifie our members Col. iii. 5. and to Crucifie Gal. vi 14. which how it may be done the next consideration of S. Paul's condition in the Text and my next part declare I am Crucified with Christ that is first as he was by being made conformable to his Death And truly should we trace him through all the stages of his Passion we should hardly find one passage but is made to be transcribed by us in dealing with our sins First he began it with Agony when his Soul was exceeding heavy for it labour'd with such weight of indignation as did make the Son of God to sink under the meer apprehension And he was sorrowful unto Death so as that his whole Body did weep Blood The Sinners passion his Repentance is exactly like it it begins always with grief and sense of weight whoever is regenerate was conceiv'd in sorrow and brought forth with pangs and the Child of God too is born weeping And for loads the Church when she does call us to shew forth this Death of Christ as if she did prescribe that very Agony requires that we should find that Garden at the Altar makes us say we are heartily sorry for our misdoings the remembrance of them is grievous unto us the burden of them is intolerable So that the Sinner's Soul must be exceeding heavy too Secondly There he is betrayed by his own domestick sold for the poorest Price imaginable as a Slave for thirty pieces of silver I shall not mind you what unworthy things the love of Money does engage men to to sell a Christ a Saviour and a God! and rather than stand out at such a base rate as we scorn to buy a sin at every single act 's engagement to Damnation costs more than the Ransom of the World is sold for and the Blood of God is purchas'd cheaper than any one opportunity of Vice does stand us in But I onely mind you here that he shall have a better hire that will but be a Judas to his own iniquities do but betray the Regent sins deliver them up and thou shalt have everlasting Heaven Thirdly We find him next carried before the High Priest And the strictest times of Christianity would serve their sins so to receive his doom upon them to be excommunicated into Reformation But I shall not urge how we can discover to a Physician our shames all our most putrid Guilts as well as Ulcers and make him our Confessor in our most secret sins neither will I be inquisitive why the Physicians of our souls are balk'd but will pass this part of the Conformity and follow Christ to Pontius Pilate And for this part we our selves are fitted the whole furniture of a Judicial Court all that makes up both Bench and Bar is born within us God hath given us a Conscience whereby we are a Law to our selves Rom. ii We have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews did want such evidence as is sufficient to condemn us the same Conscience that is privy to our doings and stands by our thoughts and sees through our intentions is a thousand witnesses And that there may be a Prosecutor our own thoughts accuse us saith S. Paul and if we will give them way will aggravate each Circumstance of guilt and danger bark and howl and cry as loud against us as the Jews did against Christ for Sin is of so murthering a guilt it will be sure to slay it self and that he may not want his deserved Ruin the Sinner makes his
likeness of his death by being made conformable to that in crucifying of our sins we are inoculated as it were and both together ingraffed in into the Cross and so there is deriv'd to us the vertue of that Stem that Root of Expiation and Atonement and by this insertion being as the same S. Paul says Phil. iii. 9. found in him we have his Righteousness That poor Soul that does throw himself down in the strict humiliations of Repentance at the footstool of the Cross and there beholds his Saviour dying for him and that is himself by Penitence incorporated into him graffed into his Death and planted in his very Passion as Origen and Thomas interpret He may take confidence to say Behold Lord if the satisfactions of thy Eternal Justice be acceptable to thee if the blood of God that is offer'd up without spot be a well-pleasing Sacrifice look down at once on thy Messiah and on my poor Soul turn not thy face from me for whatever my guilts are I have an equal Sacrifice those are my satisfactions and that blood my Offering the Passion and propitiation of the Cross are 〈◊〉 I am Crucified with Christ. We have gone through all the Parts all the Considerations of this Expression and have no more now to take notice of but this that all of them must go together that they never are fulfill'd asunder but he only whom the efficacy of the Cross of Christ hath wrought on to the Crucifying of sin he onely hath the satisfactions of the Cross imputed to him he is planted with ingraffed into Christ For if any man be i◠Christ he is a new creature old things are done away 2 Cor. v. 17. Whosoever is not such he hath no interest in the Jesus of that day He may perchance in some one of those easie Saviours which these times afford wherein Opinions call'd holy or a sanctify'd Faction give such interests and to be in a party is to be in Christ or else he may depend upon that Christ that may be had with meer Dependance that is ours if we persuade our selves he is so Now sure he that is persuaded he is Christ's is either truly so persuaded or else falsly if but falsly that will not advantage him for God will never save a man for believing a lye but that he should truly be persuaded so without this Duty is impossible for he that is Christ's hath crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts therefore by good Logick he that hath not crucified them is not Christ's and evidently whosoever is not crucified at all he is not crucified with Christ. And sure I need not put you in remembrance that the man in whom sin reigns and whensoever his Lusts and Passions bid him go he goeth or come he cometh or do this he doeth it that the body of sin is not crucified in him that which were nailed and fetter'd on the Cross and slain there could not command and rule him so Or if sins dominion be not so absolute but God hath got some footing so as that his Law hath power in the man's mind so as to make him make resistances against his sin and he dislikes it but alas commits it still yet what he does allows not but returns to do it at the next Temptation afterwards would fain be good yet does not find how to perform something governs in his members leading that Law in his mind into captivity to the law of sin this man although he hath the body of death yet 't is not crucified and slain for it does live and exercise the greatest tyranny upon him forces him to serve and to obey against his mind it overcomes his own heart and all inclinations to good and conquers God within him Till men have left off the custom of the works of sin and all gross deeds of the flesh it were as vain to prove they are not crucified as that he is alive that walks and eats Those works they are the fruits of the flesh the off-spring of its lusts and were that crucified and we by likeness to Christ's death planted into the Cross we could no more produce them than that dead Tree the Cross could bear fruit or than a Carcass could have heat to generate the Grave become a Womb or the dust bring forth Secondly Yea more they perform not the outward actions of life who have but the image of death on them and a man asleep works not yet is alive his fancy and his inwards work and if sin be onely kept from breaking out and men commit not gross deeds of the flesh but yet indulge to these things in imagination and the heart cherish them in phansie and design and wish onely restrain the practice or indulge to spiritual wickednesses you may as well say that a man is dead because he does not walk abroad because he keeps within doors and lives only in his Closet or his Bed Chamber as say that sin is crucified which while it stirs but in the heart it is not dead Thirdly Once more we part from all acquaintance with the dead the Corps of one that had the same Soul with us howsoever we may have some throes of grief to leave it yet we put it from us we admit it to no more embraces but if 't were the loathsom Carcass of a Villain Traytor that was Executed we turn from the sight as from a Fiend it is a detestable and accursed spectacle And so he that hath put his Body of sin to death would have great aversations to it yea how dear soever it had been he would no more endure the least acquaintance with it than he would go seek for his old conversations in the Chambers of Death he would shun the sight of any the most bosom custom as he would the Ghost of his dead Friend he would abandon it as a most ghastly dreadful spectacle he would also bury these his dead out of his sight Thus he must needs be dispos'd that hath crucified his Old man And they that are thus dead with Christ shall also live with him yea those that are thus crucified with him he hath already rais'd up together and hath made them sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus There already in their cause and in their right and pledge and there hereafter in effect and full enjoyment The Tenth SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Novemb. 5. 1665. LUKE IX 55. Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of THE state of that great Controversie which the words suppose between the Jews and the Samaritans as it then stood seems briefly thus Those that were planted in the Regions of Samaria by Salmaneser however great Idolaters at first having admitted in a while the God of Israel among their Gods and after having an High Priest of Aaron's Line a Temple too built on that place where Abraham and the Fathers of the Hebrews friends of God did chuse to offer Sacrifice and on that
bore the pains and found a few hours bearing them to be too heavy for him is most evident His Agonies will give you a relation beyond the skill of Lazarus that saw the Torments or of all that suffer them Look but into the Garden and see if you do not behold there a more dismal Landshape than that which Lazarus had beyond the Gulf and was desir'd to give account of there you shall find Christ at the first approaches saying my Soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death Matth. xxvi 38. As if the onely apprehension of his sufferings had inflicted them and he could not live under the thoughts of them and then he went a little farther and fell upon his face and prays saying O my Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me And what was there in this Cup which so empoyson'd it as to make it dreadful to the Son of God Oh 't is the Sinners potion that he must swill to everlastingness and when he was in this condition there appeared an Angel from Heaven strengthning him Luke xxii 43. yet v. the 44. we find him still in an Agony Angels cannot comfort one that is sensible of the guilt of sin upon him and he prays more earnestly in that same place Abha Father all things are possible with thee take away this Cup from me He does not leave an Attribute unattempted he does adore the Majesty for he falls upon his Face and Prays A Person of the Trinity prostrated in the dust to deprecate those pains he wooes him to it Abba Father canst thou deny thy well beloved onely begotten Son thy Son that is thy self when he comes to thee with such tender compellations of kindness with words of so much bowels Abba Father he takes hold too of his Omnipotence all things are possible with thee and he does it with all the earnestness possible to such a Person for saith St. Luke there he does it more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of Blood falling to the ground and what Agony is there in the Torment when there is Agony in the deprecation of them such a Passion could not be prayed against with earnestness enough but that that very earnestness will prove a Passion Yea and he goes again the third time and prays the same words as if if nothing else importunity should prevail and when we shall consider that the Person doing this is the Son of God to whom nothing could be truly insupportable yet that he should not be able to bear sin the weight of that we see makes him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me as if God could forsake that Person in whom the Godhead was of his Person Or indeed as if the condition did even separate between him and himself And now could any from the dead have given such a frighting account is there not as much warning in this prospect as if our selves had tasted all of it for is it not more that these Torments should be so terrible to him than that they should be insupportable to us Blessed Saviour if the first apprehensions did assault thee with such killing fury can we resolve to stand the storm if we do not resolve that then if all this will not scare us but notwithstanding all these fears we will have our delightful yea and our tormenting sins what other method will be able to reclâ—im us they that hear not Moses and the Prophets nor yet Christ neither will they be perswaded sure though any other come unto them from the dead And so I fall on my last part in these words If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead Here the expression should be first taken notice of For that is chang'd it should go regularly thus as in the proposal Nay Father Abraham but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent so in his answer if they repent not for Moses and the Prophets neither will they repent though one rose from the dead But here 't is otherwise as if to repent and be perswaded yea and to hear Moses and the Prophets were the same things And if it were our Age had got a fair pretence for bringing all Religion to the Ear but sure Repentance costs the eyes and heart more than it does that part and yet the Scripture useth oft the like expression So in 1 Tim. iv 16. it is said of Timothy that by continuing in his Doctrine he should save them that hear him So also 1 Cor. xv 2. by which ye are sav'd if ye keep in memory the things which I have Preach'd unto you 'T is pity when the Ear and Memory are so priviledg'd that the Tongue hath not the like advantage but not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven yet to know hath as great for this is Life eternal to know thee the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent John xvii 3. Which Life Eternal and the being sav'd or justified we may not think are so attributed to these as if to hear or to remember or to be perswaded that is to believe or know any or all of these alone shall be rewarded so or that these necessarily do produce all the rest that is necessary to attain those ends But onely that it is so reasonable that they should produce them that the Scripture does presume they will and therefore affirms He that says he knows God and keeps not his Commandments is a Lyar. 1 John ii 4. and he that sinneth hath not seen him neither known him 1 Joh. iii. 6. Nor heard of him it seems by the Text here For it is so irrational that they who have had notice of the advantages of serving God and the sad issues of Iniquity should not reform that the Scripture does not suppose them guilty of it but does chuse to word it thus they hear not A sharp rebuke for them all whose Religion is much hearing without doing the men whose Soul dwells in their Ear and that dwells by the Pulpit that these should be adjudged as men that never heard and so they shall in every respect indeed but in the innocence of not having heard that they do hear so much shall aggravate their Sentence and yet their Crime is that they hear not Moses and the Prophets and then neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead Where I note Secondly that our Saviour does not intend here to commit Prophecy and Miracles and set them one against the other to shew which were most efficacious in begetting Faith for Predictions being Gods exerting of his Omniscience as raising from dead is the exerting of his Omnipotence the one a miracle of Knowledg as the other is of Power Prophecy therefore is not to be oppos'd to Miracle because it works meerly as one indeed it is a miracle in Expectation or at
a Pompous Royal Messiah they will not believe in this but reject a Saviour that comes upon those disadvantages which will therefore prove occasions of falling to them That is was so is expresly said Behold I lay in Sion a Chief Corner-stone a stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence And that it was so upon this account is clear the Great ones cry out of him This fellow we know not whence he is They that seem'd to know whence did upbraid him with it Is not this the Carpenter And therefore with a deal of scorn they question Do any of the Rulers or the Pharisees believe in him Yea Christ himself knew this would be so great a Scandal that in the 11. Chapter of S. Matthew in the close of many Miracles which he wrought on purpose to demonstrate he was the Messiah he adds vers 6. and blessed is he that shall not be offended in me As if he thought his mean condition would prove a greater argument against him than his mighty Works were for him And it were a vaster Prodigy to see the Saviour of the World the promised Messiah poor and abject than to see one cure the Blind and heal the Lame and raise the Dead and they might think they had a stranger Miracle to confirm their unbelief than any he would work to make them believe in him And really that the Kingdom of the Messiah which the Prophets did express in terms as high as their own Extasies and Raptures in transported words as if it vied with Gods Dominion both for extent and for duration should prove at last an Empire onely over twelve poor Fishermen and Publicans and one of them a Traytor too And that He that was born this King should be born in a Stable while he liv'd that he should not have an hole to put his Head in nor his Corps in when he died but his Grave too must be Charity this would startle any that did wait for the Redemption of Israel in those glorious expresses which the Prophets trac'd it out in To you indeed that are Votaries to this Child are confirmed Christians these seeming disadvantages can give no prejudice However mean and abject his condition were that cannot make you to despise him who from that must needs reflect how dear you were to God when for your sakes meerly he became so mean an abject He became poor saith S. Paul that you through his poverty might be made rich He was made the Child of Man that you might be made Sons of God it was to pay the price of your Redemption that he so emptied himself thus he valued you and men do not despise meerly because and by those measures that they are esteem'd these are not the returns of love its passionate obliging ravishing effects do not use to be thus requited this his great descent cannot occasion your fal who know he descended onely to assume you up to glory But 't is worth inquiry why since it was certain that for this this Child should be the fall of Israel that for this they would reject him and the meanness of his condition would prove an unremovable obstruction to their belief as it is to this day Why yet he would chuse to be born in a condition so in the utmost extream to his own nature so all contradiction to his Divinity and so seemingly opposite to the very end of his coming The Jew indeed will find no excuse for his Infidelity from this condition For whatever that were yet those Miracles that made the Devils to confess him brought conviction enough to make Jews inexcusable And it was obvious to observe that He who fed five thousand with five Loaves and two Fishes till they left more than was set before them needed not to be in a condition of want or meanness if it were not otherwise more needful he should not abound God that when he brought this first begotten Son into the World said Let all the Angels of God worship him might have put him into an estate which all Mankind most readily would have done homage to As easily have dress'd his Person with a blaze of Pomp and Splendor as his Birthday with a Star if there had not been necessity it should be otherwise And such there was For when the fulness both of Time and Iniquity was come when Vice could grow no further but did even cry for Reformation and when the Doctrine that must come to give the Rules of this Reformation was not onely to wage War with Flesh and Blood with those desires which Constitution gives but which perpetual universal Custom had confirmed and which their Gods also as well as Inclinations did contribute to which their Original sin and their Religion equally â—omented for Vice was then the Worship of the World Sins had their Temples Theft its Deity and Drunkenness its God Adultery had many and to prostitute their bodies was most â—acred and their very Altar-fires did kindle these soul heats whence Uncleanness ' is so often call'd Idolatry in Scripture And besides all this when all the Philosophy and all the power of the World were ingag'd in the belief and practice of this and resolv'd with all their wit and force to keep it so When it was thus the Doctrine that must come to oppose controul reform all this must come either arm'd with Fire and Sword design to settle it self by Conquest or come in a way of Meekness and of suffering The first of these Religion cannot possibly design because it cannot aim to settle that by violence which cannot be forc'd and where 't is force is not Religion One may as well invade and hope to get a Conquest over thoughts and put a Mind in Chains and force a man to will against his will All such motives are incompetent to demonstrate Doctrines for however successful their force proves yet it cannot prove the Doctrines true for by that Argument is proves that Religion that it settles true it proves that which it destroys was true before while it prevail'd and had the Power Had this Child come so he had onely given such a testimony to the truth of Christianity as Heathenism had before and Turcism hath since He might indeed have drown'd the wicked World again in another Deluge of their own Bloud But sure never had reform'd it thus Therefore that Religion that must oppose the Customs and the Powers of the World upon Principles of Reason and Religion must do it by Innocence and Patience by doing good and which was necessary then by consequence as the World stood by suffering evil parting with all not onely the Advantages but the Necessaries of this life and life it self too where they stood in competition and were inconsistent with mens duties and their expectations And by this means they must shew the World that their Religion did bring in a better hope than that which all the profits pleasures glories
Miracle and the Rock must give them drink yet having no Imployment they made Feasts They sate down to eat and drink and rose up to play Nor would eating to the uses of their nature serve them but they must have entertainments for their wantonness Had they been imployed to get their Bread their labour would have made their morsels sweet But since God as the Wise-man says sent them from Heaven bread prepared without their labour they must have varieties to sweeten it they require him to prepare a Table also in the Wilderness and furnish them with choice And although they had the food of Angels able to content every mans delight and agreeing to every taste and serving to the appetite of the eater it temper'd it self to every mans liking and what could they fancy more The latitude of Creatures the whole Universe of Luxury could do nothing else in every single morsel they had sorts Variety all choice as if that Desert had been Paradise that Wilderness the Garden of the Lord Yet so coy is Idleness so apt to nauseate that they abhor the constancy of being pleas'd And though they were not sated neither he that gather'd much had nothing over onely to his eating God as well providing for their Health and Vertue as Necessity and dieting their Temperance as he did their Hunger Yet their very liking does grow loathsom to them When their Bodies were thus excellently well provided for having no imployment nothing to take up their Minds and Entertain their Souls they require 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meat for their Souls meat not to serve the uses of their bodies but to feed their fancies their extravagant minds Thus Idleness requires to be dieted And all this but to pamper and feed high mens inclinations so to make Temptations irresistible and by consequence Vice necessary It were easie to recount more of those ways by which the Devil does make use of mens want of Imployment to debauch their lives and ruin all the hopes of Vertue in them S. Jude finds more of its effects at Sodom They gave themselves over to Fornication and went after other flesh and are set forth for an Example suffering the vengeance of Eternal fire Indeed these are most certain consequents of not being imployed Quaeritur Aegysthus is too known an instance and great holy David is another But it s dire influence is sufficiently visible in that which it rain'd down upon those Cities Since it did fulfill the guilt of Sodom and made Heaven furnish Hell for it and God himself turn Executioner of fire and brimstone to revenge it this shall serve to prove it is one of the Devil's Master-pieces 3. Next succeed his fiery darts as S. Paul calls them namely Persecutions or Calamities of any kind Which he manageth either by inflicting pressures and he was so confident of the force of these that he did tell God he would make Job curse him to his face with them Or if he find men in necessities and pressures then by tempting them to get from under them by methods which he shall direct and he had such assurance of the strength of this Temptation that by it he tried our Saviour to find out whether he were the Son of God or no believing none but he that was so would be able to resist it Indeed the trials are severe which this Temptation does present to draw men from their Duty and to overcome their Constancy Whether it solicite by inflicting punishment as on the Mother and her Children 2 Maccab. vii or by offering to withdraw it if they will submit to their unlawful terms and so they tried her youngest Son there verse 24. or at leastwise by some feigned act some ambiguous words or practices will pretend compliance so they dealt with Eleazar Chap. vi 21. whom they would have had to bring flesh of his own provision such as he might use without offence and so onely seem to eat forbidden meat Each of which is as great a trial also and to stand against them reckon'd up amongst as vigorous acts of Faith as those that held out in the greatest tortures persecuting malice could invent Heb. xi 17. They were stoned sawn asunder were tempted Now to fetch an instance of the sad success of these I shall not need to go so far as to those Persecutions of Antiochus nor those of the primitive times of Christianity when they had no other choices but these to deliver up their Bibles or their Lives either to sacrifice to Idols or at least procure a Ticket which should certifie that they had done it or to be themselves an Holocaust and give those Idols a Burnt-offering with their martyr-flames Which made the Traditores Lapsi the Thurificati and the Libellatici to be so numerous Through Gods blessed mercy there is no use of such instances as there is no fear of such a trial 't is not death to be a Christian now For if the Son of Man or Satan's self should come to try us at those rates 't were a great doubt whether the one or other would find Faith upon the Earth whether they would sacrifice a life to our Religion who are not content to sacrifice a little interest or pleasure to it whether they are likely to resist unto blood fighting against sin who will not resist to tears nor sober resolutions Alas what Religion should we be of if God should raise a Dioclesian come to tempt us with the fiery trial Martyrs as we are to nothing but our Passions and our lusts Nor shall I produce more known and near experiences when by reason of such storms of Persecution men made shipwreck if not of their Faith yet of good Conscience When by order or permissions of Providence they were brought to such a streight that either they must let go their possessions or their honesty acting against Principles and Conscience of Duty I shall not remember how when God did shake his angry hand thus over them they fled to the Devils kindness and made Hell their refuge to save them from their Fathers rod how they grew so Atheistical as to believe a Perjury or other crime greater security that would preserve their selves and their condition better than all God had promis'd were such Infidels that they did rather trust their being here to the commission of a sin than to the Providence and the Engagements of the Almighty For indeed what need I instance in these greater cases where the trial was so sharp as not to offer any easier choice than this either to part with Conscience or with all they had God knows we find less Interests will do The Devil by no more than this driving the Gadarens swine into the Sea was able to drive Christ out of their Coasts You have the story Matth. viii from the 28. verse A legion of those evil spirits did possess two men and finding Christ would cast them out
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that mind earthly things the fourth sort in whicâ— all their wisdom lies Which two last sorts of Enemies I shall attaque together The Cross of Christ amongst its other ends was set to be an instrument whereby the World is to be Crucified to us and we unto the World to be the means whereby we are enabled to prevail upon and overcome our worldly lusts and inclinations and to sleight yea and detest all the temptations of its Wealth Delights and Heights when they attempt to draw us into sin or take us off from Duty Now to this it works by these three steps First shewing us the Author and the finisher of our Faith nailed himself to that Cross his joints rack'd on it his whole Body strip'd and nothing else but Vinegar and bitter potions allow'd his thirst and thus convincing us that if we will be his Disciples we must take up his Cross and follow him at leastwise we must have preparedness of mind to take it up when ever it is fix'd to Duty to renounce all profits honours and delights of this World that are not consistent with our Christian profession This is the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ it being otherwise impossible to to be the Disciples of a Crucified Master And when this great Captain of our Salvation was himself consecrated by his sufferings and had for his Standard his own Body lifted up upon the Cross we that are listed under him and with that very badg the Cross too crucis Consecranei Votaries and fellow Soldiers of that Order if we shall avoid our Duty when it is attended with a Cross or straitned any ways and the provisions of this World are cut off from it and betake our selves rather to the contents of Earth we do not onely shamefully fly from our Colours Fugitive and Cowards Poltrons in the Spiritual Warfare but are Renegadoes false and traytours to our selves too such as basely ran away not onely from our Officer but from Salvation which he is the Captain of and which we cannot possibly attain except we be resolv'd to follow him and charge through whatsoever disadvantages to attend Religion vanquishing all those temptations with which the World assaults us in our course to Duty Thus the Cross of Christ first shews us the necessity we have to renounce and Crucifie the World But to encourage and enable us to do so it does also shew us Secondly The certainty of a good issue in the doing it assures us that those who deny themselves forbidden satisfactions here that will be vertuous maugre all the baits and threats of Earth will embrace Duty when it is laden with a Cross although so heavy as to crush out life and kill the body assures us that those lose not but exchange their lives shall save their Souls and that there is another World wherein their losses shall be made up to them and repaired with all advantage To the truth of this the Cross of Christ is a most pregnant and infallible testimony For as by multitudes of Miracles Christ sought to satisfie the World that he was sent from God to promise all this and justified his Power to perform it by experiment raising some up from the dead so when they said he did his Miracles by Beelzebub he justified it â—urther with his Life affirming that he was the Son of God no 't is impossible but he must know whether he were or no and consequently sent and able to do all he promised and resolv'd to do it also for our more assurance in himself that he would raise himself up from the dead within three days and saying this when he was sure he should be Crucified for saying so and sure that if he did not do according to his words he must within three days appear a meer Impostor to the world and his Religion never be receiv'd Now 't is impossible for him that must needs know whether all this were true or no to give a greater testimony to it than his Life For this that Bloud and Water that flowed from his wounded side upon Cross which did assure his Death is justly said to bear witness to his being the Son of God and consequently to the truth of all this equal to the testimony of the Spirit whether that which the Spirit gave when he came from Heaven down upon him in his Baptism or the testimony which he gave by Miracle for there are three that bear witness upon Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood Thus by his Death Christ did bring Life and Immortality to light his choosing to lay down his own life for asserting of the truth of all this was as great an argument to prove it as his raising others from the dead and Lazarus's empty Monument and walking Grave-cloaths were not better evidence than this Cross of Christ. 4. Once more this Cross not onely proves the certainty of a future state but does demonstrate the advantage of it and assures us that it is infinitely much more eligible to have our portion in the life to come than in this life That to part with every thing that is desireable in this World rather than to fail of those joys that are laid up in the other that to be poor here or to be a spoyl to renounce or to disperse my wealth that so I may lay up treasures for my self in Heaven and may be rich to God never to taste any one of these puddle transient delights rather than to be put from that right hand where there are pleasures for evermore to be thrown down from every height on Earth if so I may ascent those everlasting Hills and Mount Sion that is above that this is beyond all proportion the wisest course it does demonstrate since it shews us him who is the Son of God who did create all these advantages of Earth and prepare those in Heaven and does therefore know them both Who also is the Wisdom of the Father and does therefore know to value them yet for the joys that were set before him choosing to endure the Cross and despising the shame On that Beam he weigh'd them and by that his choice declar'd the Pomps of this World far too light for that exceeding and eternal weight of Glory that the whole earth was but as the dust upon the Ballance and despis'd it and to make us do so is both the Design and direct influence of the Cross of Christ. But as at first the Wise men of this World did count the Preaching of the Cross meer folly to give up themselves to the belief and the obedience of a man that was most infamously Crucified and for the sake of such an one to renounce all the satisfactions suffer all the dire things of this Life and in lieu of all this onely expect some after Blessednesses and Salvations from a man that they thought could not save himself seemed to them most ridiculous So truly
it does still appear so to the carnal reasonings of that sort of men who have the same objections to the Cross of Christ as it would Crucifie the World to them and them to it as it would strip them of all present rich contents and give them certain evils with some promises of after good things which they have no taste for nor assurance of Now this being in their account folly then the contrary to this they must think Wisdom as it is indeed the Wisdom of this World which Wisdom since it does design no further than this World and hath no higher ends than Earth and its Felicities it must needs put men upon minding the acquist and the enjoyment of these Earthly things for that is onely to pursue and to atchieve their ends to catch at and lay hold on their felicity and accordingly we see it does immerse them wholly in those cares So that it is no wonder if their God and Religion can get no attendance from them it being most impossible they should when Mammon hath engaged them in the superstitious services of Idolatry and when they sacrifice their whole selves to pleasure and make their bodies the burnt offerings of their Lusts and when Ambition even while it makes them stretch and climb and mount causes them also to fall low prostrate make their temper nature stoop lie down to every humour and to every Vice they think themselves concern'd to court and please And though a man would think these so great boundless cares are very vain and foolish upon several accounts for common sense as well as Scripture does assure us that this life and the Contents of it do not consist in the abundance of the things that we possess that it is all one whether my draught come out of a small Bottle or an Hogshead the one of these indeed may serve excess and sickness better but the other serves my Appetite as well the one may drown my Vertue but the other quenches thirst alike And every days experience also does convince us that the least cross accident pain or affliction on our persons or some other that is seated near our hearts or the least vexation or cross passion will so sowr all those advantages that we cannot possibly enjoy them while we have them sickness makes the richest plenty only a more nauseous trouble a more costly loathing then the poorest Soul that is in health is that great rich mans envy And there 's no man also but does see so far into futurity as to satisfie himself that he shall die and then the shadow of Death will cloud and put out all these Glories And universal Reason also does tell every man that to deny himself or want his present satisfactions of this helpless dying kind and suffer present evils is in prudence to be chosen for avoiding of a future evil or atchieving of a good to come which do transcend those other infinitely and to all Eternity continue Sure as no man pities the poor Infant in the Womb because he lies imbrued in Blood hath no inheritance there at all is fetter'd confin'd as it were in that dark Cell if he be to be born to an Estate to live a full age here in gaiety of mind and health of body in Reputation and all plenty of delights we never are concern'd or troubled at his other nine months Dungeon So if this life be to the next as the Womb is to this and if our hopes be no more on the Earth than in the Belly and we have no inheritance or abiding place here as we had not there although the waters of affliction and to be in our bloud should be as natural to us as to the Child yet if we thus press forward to the other birth to be delivered into immortality of joys this state were not to be lamented but endeavoured for with all our powers Lastly the same reason does assure us that if those futurities which are most certain were but only possible yet to part with every thing and suffer any thing here to prevent miscarriage in relation to those two Eternities is certainly the safest course and then by consequence the wisest And this does appear a truth to all men when they go to die And if it be the truth then 't is always so Yet notwithstanding all this he that minds these earthly things whose heart is set upon them whose desires the World serves provides to satisfie every imagination of delight His heart is so intangled in affections to them and in prejudices for them and hath so imbib'd the impressions of them that he hath no taste for any other and by consequence no satisfying notions of them And if he hath not then it is not possible that he should really and from his heart out of conviction and inward sense value these beyond the earthly ones and it is plain we see he does not and if he do not to deprive himself of all the sweet contentments of his life and tear out his own bowels that yearn after them and cling to them and instead of those embrace a Cross and do this for things which he cannot value more and counts uncertain he must needs think a mad folly Consequently to contrive and seize the present to the best most plentiful advantage is the wisest course and therefore they that by whatever arts do thrive advance themselves live high and in delights they are Wise men because they do attain their ends by means appropriate to those ends And now the enmity betwixt the Cross of Christ and the wisdom of the World appears first their designs are most directly opposite the cross designs to take us up from earth and from its satisfactions which have also thorns and bryars in them that Earths Curse things that pierce and wound as fatally as the Nails and Thorns and other cruelties of Christ's Cross and to lift us towards Heaven to direct our hearts and our affections thither as our harbingers to take possession for us of those joys the Cross did purchase for us but no Cross can ever trouble But the Wisdom of this World designs to lay out all its cares and its contrivances within this World minds nothing else but earthly things and does not lift an eye or thought to any other Secondly Their Principles wage war For earthly good things being the design the main end of this worldly wisdom consequently that does justifie all courses without which men cannot gain those ends by which they do though they be never so unlawful by the Rules of that which we call Vertue and Religion it does justifie I say all such as prudent But the Principles of the Doctrines of the Cross of Christ are positive that we must renounce all earthly satisfactions when they cannot be enjoyed without trangressing Christ's Commands and imbrace Duty even when it executes it self upon us But Thirdly there 's no enmity so fatal to the Cross of Christ as is
that do not by putting them out of his Train into the condemnation of Publicans 't is no wonder all this does not work with them whom their own sufferings and black Calamities will not convince There is not one of us but knows that thus our miseries began but few years since and yet we that have suffered for and by our Divisions whose quarrels wounded the whole Nation and our selves who have wept so much bloud at once to vent and to bewail our differences are still as full of the same animosities as ever and want nothing but opportunity to confound all again Religion and our selves And in the name of God what did Christ mean when he prescrib'd this Precept when he disputed prest it thus or what do Christians mean when they do break and tear this Precept and themselves Though I be far from any hopes to reconcile our Parties as by Gods help I shall ever be from making any yet I will offer an Expedient to make them not so noxious namely if they will keep the differences of their judgments from breaking out into their affections and actions And though while meekness and obedience to Governours and the whole constellation of Gospel-graces do not seem to shine so fair as man's own reputation or humor or possibly some strict opinion which they have own'd and the shew of holiness that glitters in it while 't is thus I say we cannot look any party will yield all do or will believe themselves to be in the right yet I will give them leave to think so and my prescription shall concern them equally although they be and by addressing my Discourse to them that are so really I shall conclude more forcibly them that are not who ere they be for sure I am none can be more in the right than those whom Christ lays this injunction upon than his Disciples and Apostles as relating to those that would be their Enemies as such Yet 't is to them he speaks here I say unto you love your Enemies c. The words contain a Duty prescrib'd and the Authority prescribing it The Prescription and the Authority in these words I say unto you the Duty in the rest where it is set down 1. in general Love your Enemies and that to be consider'd under a double prospect 1. As it is plac't in opposition to somthing that was before indulg'd the Jews or presum'd so to be by them signified here by the particle But and then as it stands by it self in its own positive importance Love your Enemies And Secondly this Duty is particulariz'd in several exercises of the Act commanded Love in relation to several sorts of the Objects of that Act Enemies As 1. Those that curse you you must bless 2. Those that hate you you must do good to 3. Those that use you despitefully and persecute you you must pray for These I shall treat of in their given order beginning with the general Duty and viewing that at once in both the lights that it doth stand in that one may clear and fortifie the other But I say unto you love your Enemies Of all the Points of Christian Religion those which did most stagger the faith of some and check their acceptation of it or adherence to it saith Marcellinus writing to St. Austin were these 3 The incarnation of our Lord The meanest of his Miracles which they thought the works of Apollonius equall'd and thirdly the prescriptions in the Text It seems they lookt upon these Duties as the mysteries of Practice that spoke as loud a contradiction to their active principles and inclinations as the other appear'd to do so those of Speculation and Discourse a God made flesh and flesh and bloud made so lame and passive sweetned so being alike impossible to their belief As if no flesh could certainly be so except that of which God was made and the Word incarnate onely could fulfill these words here in my Text They lookt upon this as a much-more mighty work than any of his Miracles as if 't were easier to snatch one out of the arms of Fate from the embraces of the Grave than to receive an enemy into ones own As if Christ had done more when he pray'd for his Crucifiers then when he pray'd Lazarus out of his grave For their Magicians they say vied Miracles with him but none of their Religions or Gods did ever aim at this Prescription ut quae sit propria bonitas nostra saith Tertullian this being a sort of Piety peculiar to the Christians Nor did they onely think it unpracticable but unreasonable as carrying opposition to all Government to the Prosperity and Peace of every Polity for he that does require that I shall have no return of injuries but for a wrong makes me in debt a kindness not onely supersedes judiciary proceedings but does secure Rapine by Law and encourage it by reward and truly if it were impossible for him that does affect a person to dislike his evil actions and to desire he may have condigne punishment such as by Gospel-measures may be satisfaction equal to his fault and warning to himself and others these men had reason But if a Father can at once love and correct his Child if when I am with indignation displeas'd at my offences against God and by severities revenge them on my self I do then love my self most passionately and if I can pray with all the vigour of my soul for that false Traytor-bosom-enemy my flesh while it lies goading me to sin and with temptation persecuting me to everlasting death then no reason of State or of my own requires I should not do all these acts of kindness to my Adversary In that thou hast an exact pattern for thy enmity to them that wrong thee and thou shalt hate thine enemy as thy self is a most perfect Gospel-Rule that being most consâ—â—â—nt with and directive of this Duty love your enemies But yet there is so great a difference indeed betwixt this Act here and its object Enemy being constituted such by enmity that is aversion and hate that love and that seem strangely coupled things that can be put together onely for a contest just as heat and cold to weaken one another that both the love and enmity may be refracted into a luke-warmhess Therefore I shall divide them handling Love first by it self viewing the import of that as it is sincere lest the enemy appearing with it make it shrink into a very slender Duty and having done that secondly see whether an others enmity and thirdly whether enmity with that appropriation here your enemies can take off from the Obligation of that Duty Love Now Love shews fairest to our purposes in those dresses which S. Paul presents her in 1 Cor. 1. 13. and 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 4. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 5. it suffers long if not the damage yet the malice of repeated injuries as knowing it is bound to forgive 'till
out his own Bowels and cut off his hopes will Sacrifice his onely Son and Sacrifice Gods Promises to his Commands And then he that will trust to Abraham's example of believing yet will not follow him at all in doing will obey no Commands that is so far from offering up an onely Son he will not slay an onely evil Custom nor part with one out of the herd of all his vicious Habits will not give up the satisfaction to any of his carnal worldly or ambitious appetites not sacrifice a Passion or a lust to all the Obligations that God and Christ can urge him with he hath nor faith nor friendship no nor forehead 'T is true indeed he that hath Abraham's faith may well assure himself he is Christs Friend but 't is onely on this account because he that believes as Abraham believed he will not stick to do whatever Christ commands which is that universality of obedience that is the next condition that entitles to Christs friendship and my last Part. Ye are my Friends if ye do whatsoever I Command you There is no quality so necessary to a Friend or so appropriate to friendship as sincerity They that have but one Soul they can have no reserves from one another But disobedience to one Precept is inconsistent with sincerity that hath respect unto all the Commandments and he that will not do whatever Christ prescribes hath reserves of affection for some darling sin and is false to his Saviour He is an Enemy indeed so that there is no friendship on either side S. Paul says so of any of one kind the minding of the flesh saith he whether it be providing for the Belly or any other of the Organs of Carnality is desperate incurable Rebellion Now such a Rebel is we know the worst of Enemies S. James does say as much of any of those vicious affections that are set on the World Whosoever will be a friend of the World is an Enemy of God James iv 4. And he calls them adulteresses and Adulterers who think to joyn great strict Religion to some little by-love of an Honour or a profit of this World Such Men are like a Wife that not contented with the partner of her Bed takes in another now and then she must not count her self her Husbands Friend though she give him the greatest share in her affections no she is but a bosom Enemy And so any one Vice allowed is a paramour sin is whoredom against Christ and our pretended friendship to him in all other obediences is but the kindness and the caresses of an Adulteress the meer hypocrisie and treachery of love If it be necessary to the gaining Christ's friendship that thou do his Commands 't is necessary that thou do them all that thou divorce thy self from thy beloved sin as well as any other Because his Friendship does no more require other obedience than it does that but is as inconsistent with thy own peculiar Vice as with the rest Indeed it is impossible that it should bear with any they being all his murderers If thou canst find one sin that had no hand in putting Christ to Death one Vice that did not come into the garden nor upon Mount Calvary that did not help to assassin thy Saviour even take thy fill of that But if each had a stab at him if no one of thy Vices could have been forgiven had not thy Jesus died for it canst thou expect he should have kindness for his Agony or friendship for the man that entertains his Crucifiers in his heart If worldly cares which he calls Thorns fill thy head with Contrivances of Wealth and Greatness of filling Coffers and of platting Coronets for thee as the thorns did make him a Câ—own too wouldst thou have him receive thee and these in his bosom to gore his Heart as they did pierce his Head If thou delight in that intemperance which filled his deadly Cup which Vomited Gall into it can he delight in thee That Cup which made him fall upon his face to deprecate will he partake in as the pledge of mutual love He that sunk under could not bear this load of thine when it was in his Cross upon his shoulders will he bear it and thee in his Arms when thou fallest under it When thou wilt cast a shameful spewing on his glory too if he own such a Friend Thou that art so familiar with his Name as thou wer't more his Friend than any in the World whose Oaths and imprecations Moses says strike through that Name which they so often call upon thou mayst as well think his Heart did attract the Spear that pierced it and the Wound close upon its head with Unions of Love as that he hath kindness for thee If Christ may make Friendship with him that does allow himself a sin he may have fellowship with Belial For him to dwell in any heart that cherisheth a Vice were to descend to Hell again But as far as those Regions of Darkness are from his Habitation of Glory and the Black Spirits of that place from being any of his Guard of holy Myriads so for is he from dwelling with or being friend to him that is a friend to any wickedness to him that will not do whatever he commands And now if these Conditions seem hard if any do not care to be his Friend upon these terms they may betake themselves to others Let such make themselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness A Friend indeed that hath not so much of the insincerities as many great ones have For this will furnish them with all that heart or lust can wish for all that necessity or wantonness proposeth to it self to dress out pomp or Vice But yet when with enjoyment the affections grow and become so unquiet work them so as not to let their thoughts or actions rest make them quicken themselves and like the motions of all things that go downwards tending to the Earth increase by the continuance grow stronger and more violent towards the end then when they are most passionate it fails them And having filled their life with most unsatisfied tormenting cares it leaves them nothing but the guilt of all When their great Wealth shall shrink into a single sheet no more of it be left but a thin shroud and all their vast Inheritances but six foot of Earth be gone yet the iniquity of all will stick close to them and this false Friend that does it Self forsake them will neither go along nor will let its pomp follow them raises a cry on them as high as Gods Tribunal the cry of all the Blood all the oppressed rights that bribery till then had stifled the groans of all those Poor that greatness covetousness or extortion had groun'd or crush'd the yellings of those Souls that were sâ—arv'd for want of the Bread of life which yet they payed for and the price of it made those heaps which will
that day appear against their Friends and Masters and prove their Adversaries to eternal Death Let others joy in Friends that Wine does get them such as have no qualification to endear them but this that they will not refuse to sin and to be sick with their Companions Men that do onely drink in their affections as full of friendship as of liquor and probably they do unload themselves of both at once part with their dearness and their drink together and alike I know not whether in be heats of mutual kindness that inflame these draughts and the desires of them so as if they did drink thirst but sure I am that these hot draughts begin the Lake of fire Let others please themselves in an affection that Carnality cements These are warm friendships I confess but Solomon will tell us whence they have their heat Her house saith he doth open into Hell and Brimstone kindles those libidinous flames There are strait bands fetters in those affections indeed for the same Wiseman says The Closets of that sinner are the Chambers of Death That none that go unto her return again or take hold of the paths of life it seems she is a friend that takes most irreversible dead hold she is not onely as insatiate but as inexotable as the Grave and the Eternal Chains of Fate are in those her Embraces But God keep us from making such strict Covenants with Death from being at friendship with Hell or in a word that I say all at once with any that are good Companions onely in sinâ—ing Such men having no virtue in themselves must needs hate it in others as being a reproach to them and therefore they are still besieging it using all arts and stratagems to undermine it and having nothing else to recommend them in mens affections but their managery of Vice no way to Merit but by serving iniquity they not onely comply with our own evil Inclinations that so they may be grateful and insinuate into us but they provoke too and inflame those tendencies that they may be more useful to us having no other means to work their ends And then such friends by the same reason must be false and treacherous and all that we declaim at and abhor in Enemies when that shall be the way to serve their ends because they have no Virtue to engage them to be otherwise And to be such is to be constant to their own designs their dispositions and usances These are the Pests of all Societies they speak and live infection and friendship with them is to couple with the Plague These do compleat and perfect what the Devil but began in Eden Nurse up Original sin chase inclination into appetite and habit suggest and raise desires and then feed them into Constitution and Nature In a word are a brood of those Serpents one of which was enough to destroy Paradise and Innocence 'T is true a man would think these were our Friends indeed that venture to Gehenna for us Alas they are but more familiar Devils work under Sathan to bring us to Torments and differ nothing from him but that they draw us into them and he inflicts them And when sinful contents come home in Ruine and pleasures die into Damnation then men will understand these treacherous loves and find such Friends are but projectours for the Devil then they will hate them as they do their own Damnation discerning these are but the kindnesses of Hell Nay it is possible I may slander that place in speaking so ill of it Dives will let us see there are affections of a kinder and more blessed strain in Hell Luke xvi from the twenty seventh Verse you find he did make truce with Torments that he might contrive and beg onely a message of Repentance for his Brethren he did not mind at all his own dire Agonies he minded so the reformation of his Friends Good God! when I reflect upon these pieties of the Damn'd together with the practices of those who have given their names in to Religion when I see Fiends in Hell do study how to make Men virtuous and Christians upon Earth with all their art debauch them into vice and ruine I cannot choose but pray Grant me such Friends as are in Hell Rather grant us all the Friendship in the Text. But then we must have none with any Vice Friendship with that engageth into Enmity with God and Christ I shew'd you And to pass over all those after-retributions of Vengeance Christ hath studied for his Enemies when he that now courts us to be our Friend and we will make our Adversary must be our Judg For were there none of this and should we look no further than this life yet sure we of this Nation know what it is to have God our Enemy who for so many years lay under such inflictions as had much of the character of his last execution they had the Blasphemies and the Confusion the dire Guilts and the black Calamities and almost the Despair and Irrecoverableness of those in Hell And though He be at Peace with us at present at least there is a Truce yet I beseech you in the presence and the fear of God to think in earnest whether the present provocations of this Nation do not equal those that twenty years ago engaged him into Arms against us and made him dash us so in pieces Whether those Actions of the Clergy be reformed that made the People to abhor their Function and their Service the Offerings and Ministers of the Lord and made God himself spew them out 'T were endless to go on the prophaneness to the loose impieties and the bold Atheisms of the Laity especially of the better sort in short what one degree or state or Sex is better Sure I am if we are not better we are worse beyond expression or recovery who have resisted every method and conquer'd all God's Arts of doing good upon us been too hard for his Judgments and his Mercies both 'T is true when we lay gasping under his severe Revenges we then pretended to be humbled begg'd to be reconciled and be at peace with him and vow'd to his Conditions promising obedience and aliened our selves from our old sins his Foes But then when Christ came to confirm this Amity came drest with all his Courtship brought all the invitations of Love along our Prince and our Religion our Church and State Righteousness and Peace and the Beauty of Holiness every thing that might make us be an Happy and a Pious Nation thus he did tempt and labour to engage that Friendship which we offered him and vowed to him And we no sooner seiz'd all this but we break resolutions as well as duty to get loose from him and laden with the spoyls of our defeated Saviour's goodness we joyn hands with his Enemies resume our old acquaintant-sins enrich and serve them with his Bounties make appear that we onely drew him in to work such