from whom we are so called And that consists not in demure Looks and affected Phrases in melting Tones and mimick Gestures in Heats and Vehemence in Rapture and Ecstasie in systems of Opinion and scrupulosity about Nothing But in Faith and Patience Innocence and Integrity in Love to God and Charity to all the World in a modest sweetness and humble Deportment in a peaceable Spirit and readiness to obey God and Those He hath set over Us Where-ever These are there is the Image of our Lord and There ought to be our Love though the persons thus affected are Ignorant of many things and err in many though they differ from us in some Opinions we count Orthodox and walk not in the particular ways or Circumstances which We esteem Best And thus briefly of the Extent of the Duty we ought to Love ALL MEN but especially ALL Christians I descend to the Third general viz. III. The Excellency of Christian Love which I represent in the following particulars I. IT is the Image of God and of all the graces renders us most like our Maker For God is love and the Lover of men and his tender Mercies are over all his Works And the most sutable apprehension we can form of his Being is to look on him as an Omnipotent Omniscient Immutable Goodness And is it not a glorious Excellency that makes Men like the fountain of all perfection Our unhappy first Parents lost Paradise by aspiring to be like God in Knowledge and if we endeavour to be like him in Love we shall be in the way of gaining a better Paradise than they lost II. LOVE is the Spirit of Angels Glorified Souls and the best of Men. There is nothing by which the Angelical nature is so much distinguish'd from the Diabolical as Love and Goodness for the Devils have Spiritual and Immortal natures and great degrees of Power and Knowledge and those perhaps not much inferiour to what is to be found in some of the better Spirits so that the great difference is not in the excess of natural perfections which the Angels of Light have above those of Darkness but in this that the former abound in Love Sweetness and Benignity and the latter in Malice Cruelty and Revenge these are the very Image of Satan and Spirit of Hell Whereas all the Celestial Inhabitants live in the joyful exercise of uninterrupted Love and endearments Nor is that Love confined to the blessed and glorified Company but it sheds it self abroad upon the nether world and they are Ministring Spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. They so far Love us that they can stoop from Heaven to serve us There is Joy there at the Conversion of a Sinner and no doubt there is Love to converted Saints and care and pity for all the rest of Men. For the spirits of the just made perfect are freed from their froward humours and pettish natures their mistaken Zeal and fondness of Opinions which straitned their Affections while they were on Earth and now they are inlarged by the vast improvements of their Knowledge and accomplishment of their Vertue by a fuller sense of Divine Love and of their Duty by the genius of their company and the imployment of the happy Place So that in Heaven all are truly Catholick in their Affections And the better any man is the more he is so upon Earth The good man makes not himself his center nor are his thoughts wholly engrost about his own concernments but he is carefully solicitous for the general benefit and never so much pleased as when he is made an instrument of Divine Goodness to promote the interests of his Christian brethren 'T was an high strain of Love in Moses exprest towards the Transgressing Israelites when he was content to be blotted out of Gods Book rather than that their Sin should not be blotted out Exod. 32. 32. And St. Paul was no less Zealously affectionate towards the Jews when he said he could wish himself accursed from Christ viz. separated from Christian communion as a most vile and abject person for their sakes Rom. 9. 3. These were spirits whom Religion and Divine Love had enlarged and the more any man advanceth in Christianity the nearer he approacheth to this generous heroick temper III. LOVE is an eminent branch of the Divine Life and Nature Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God saith the Apostle 1 John 4. 7 8. The Divine Nature in us is the Image of God Pourtray'd and lively drawn upon the regenerated Soul and I noted before that Love is the vital Image of our Maker 't is His spirit infused into us and growing in us and upon that account to be preferred before all Gifts and natural Perfections as St. Paul hath done it in the mentioned 1 Cor. 13. And the common Gifts of the Spirit differ from this special Grace as the Painters Picture doth from his Son His Counterfeit may indeed in a superficial appearance to the Eye resemble him more than his Child but yet it is but an empty shadow destitute and incapable of his Life and Nature So there are a sort of Gifts that have a spiritual appearance and may to those that see things at distance or have not their senses exercised seem more like the divine nature than this modest vertue But those that come near them and are better able to discern perceive that in themselves they are without the Divine Life and Motion and are meer Lifeless Pictures And here I dare say that the happiest faculty to Preach Plausibly and Pray with Fluency and Eloquence to Discourse Devoutly and readily to Interpret Scripture if it be not joyned with a benign and charitable spirit is no participation of the God-like life and nature nor indeed any more Divine than those common gifts and natural parts which those that think highly of themselves upon these accounts despise For very Evil men have been eminent in these accomplishments and Wicked Spirits are without question endowed with them and they are of themselves arguments of nothing but a faculty of Imitation a devotional Complexion and warm Imagination Whereas on the other hand Charity and Christian Love are good Evidence of a Renewed state and nature Our Saviour made it a Character Joh. 13. and the Apostle concludes from it 1 John 3. 14. By this we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the Brethren And if this be a Mark and St. John be not mistaken I doubt that some who are very gracious by many Signs of their own will want one of Christs to prove their comfortable presumption IV. LOVE is the bond and tye of Christian Communion How can two walk together except they are agreed The Church is a Body consisting of many Members which unless they Unite and send their mutual supplies one to another the whole is distempered and in the ready way to Death and Dissolution Now Charity is that vital Cement whereby they are United and the Soul by
different from that Charity which thinketh no Evil 1 Cor. 13. that it thinks nothing else concerning those of a differing Judgement but that their Vertues are dull Morality and their Piety Hypocritical Pretensions or what-ever Worse Ill-will can Invent and Rage can say They will not believe that to be a Jewel which they find among so much supposed Rubbish But let us take Care that we deny not God the Honour of his Gifts and Graces or proudly fancy that he hath given us the Monopoly This is contrary to that Charity which is not puffed up and doth not behave it self unseemly Or if we could modestly suppose that there is nothing but Ignorance and mistake among all those who are not of our Opinion yet however their Vertues ought to be acknowledg'd The Son of God was to be Worshipped even when he lay in the Stable and the Ark to be owned when among the Philistins 'T is a sign that we love God for himself if we Love him every where And indeed that Worth is more to be admired that grows up in an uncultivated Soyl and among the Weeds of Errour and false Principles To find a Rose or Tulip in a Garden is a common thing and merits less of our regard but to meet with them in the High-way or open Fields this ingageth our nearer Notice and recommends the Flowers to our more particular Kindness Thus Vertue though in all men excellent yet 't is no more than is expected to be in Persons of Knowledge and right Judgement But in the Ignorant and Mistaken it thrives under Disadvantages and deserves more to be Cherish'd and Incourag'd And now if 't were possible to bring the divided World to these Ingenuous Acknowledgements men would find their Spirits compos'd and their Animosities qualified They would see they have Friends even in the Tents of their Enemies and this Apprehended and Own'd mutually would be a very hopeful way to endear and reconcile us II. Be much in the Contemplation of the Love of God He that knows how much God hath Loved him hath a mighty Reason to Love his Brother The Apostle urgeth the Argument 1 John 4. 11. If God so Loved us we ought also to Love one another and he that considers cannot choose for he must needs find himself sweetly Ingaged to Love God of whose Love he is sensible and he that loves Him loves all things in him For all things are his and he tenders every thing he hath made The Love of God doth not confine us to his single abstracted Essence but requires our Kindness to all that bear his Image yea and produceth it Seraphick Love will be Catholick It doth not burn like a Lamp in a Sepulchre but 't is like the Stars of Heaven that impart themselves to all things And as the Planets that receive their Light from the Sun do not suck it in and ingross it but disperse and shed it abroad upon the most distant Bodies in like manner a Christian Soul that is warmed and lightned by Divine Love doth not keep it within it self but communicates its benign Influences to all the Objects that are within its reach The Love of God in its proper Nature is diffusive and very opposite to Envy and Animosity It Dispels the Clouds and Allays the Tempests that arise from the Body and its Appetites and composeth the Soul to the Sweetest and most even Temper It Inlarges our Minds and Softens our Affections and Calms our Passions and Smooths the Ruggedness of our Natures It destroys our Pride and Selfishness and so strikes up the Roots of Enmity and Divisions and thus disposeth us to the most Generous and Comprehensive Charity III. Make the great Design of Religion yours and know that the Intent of that is not to fill our heads with Notion or to teach us Systems of Opinion to resolve us a Body of Difficult Points or to Inable us to talk plausibly for lesser Truths But to furnish our minds with incouragements of Virtue and instances of Duty to direct us to govern our Passions and subdue our appetites and self-wills in order to the glory of God the good of Societies and our own present and eternal Interests And if Christians would take this to be their business and conscientiously apply themselves unto it they would find work enough in their own hearts to imploy them and neither have time nor occasion to pry into the Infirmities of others nor inclination to quarrel with them they would see how unwise it is to be seeking and making Enemies when they have so many within themselves and how dangerous to be diverted to a needless and unjust forein War while a deadly domestick Foe is strengthned by it And methinks 't is wonderful and 't is sad that we should be so mild and indulgent to the Enemies that we are bound to engage against by our Duty to God and to our selves by his Laws and our own Reasons by the precepts and examples of his Son our Saviour by his Sacraments and by his Blood by all things in Religion and all things in Interest and at the same time be so eager against those whom we ought to consider as Friends upon the account of our relation to God and the tie of common nature and the obligations of Divine Commands and the interests of Societies and the practice of the best times past and the hopes of a future happiness This is lamentable in it self and yet the more so for being common And it seems to me such a kind of madness as if a man should be picking causless quarrels with his Neighbours about a chip of Wood or a broken Hedge when a Fire in his house is consuming his Goods and Children Such Frenzies and much greater are our mutual enmities and oppositions while we quietly sit down in our unmortified Affections And we should know them to be so did we understand our Danger or our Duty and seriously mind either the one or other We should find then that a Christian hath no such enemies as the Flesh the world and the Devil that these will require all our care and imploy all our strength and diligence and he that knows this and considers and acts suitably will find too much in himself to censure and oppose and too little to admire himself for above other men He will see sufficient reason to incline him to pardon his erring brother and be the more easily induced to exercise charity which himself so many ways needs The last Direction is this IV. Study the moderate pacifick ways and principles and run not in extremes both Truth and Love are in the middle Extremes are dangerous After all the swaggering and confidence of Disputers there will be uncertainty in lesser matters and when we travel in uncertain Roads 't is safest to choose the Middle In this though we should miss a lesser truth which yet is not very likely we shall meet with Charity and our gain will be greater than our loss
Education is as handsome and ingenuous and I know not why the parts of the Clergy should not be equal to those of other ways of breeding So that we might pass well enough in the world and for ought I know might meet tolerable reception in it were it not that God hath honour'd us with the dignity of being his immediate Servants and hath employ'd us in the affairs of Souls But for this I can see no cause why we should not be as capable of the qualities that procure respect as others that have a competent measure of it And therefore upon the whole matter I must say that we are so far from having honour for our office and our work sake that we are lessened by them and if a Minister meet respective entertainment in the world the kindness is extorted by some personal advantages he owns and not given him for his character and Function no he 's taken down and is so much less in consideration of it So that God himself is affronted and Religion vilified by the excessive unreasonable contempt that is put upon the dispensers of his Truths and Laws And 't is pity that our concernment in this matter will not permit us without incurring more reproach roundly to reprove this indignity to our Lord and theirs who hath sent us in the most important errand to them But alas all we can do without the loud imputation of Preaching up our selves is to bear our Reproach in silence and to mourn in secret for that horrid Atheism and Scorn of all Religion or of the best which is the occasion of it and certainly where there is contempt of the Priesthood above board there is disvalue of Religion under it disrespect to one doth suppose and will soon produce irreverence to the other Upon the whole we see how great reason we have to be cautious that we contribute not to the contempt that is on Religion and our selves and justifie this impious barbarous Age in it And there is no better advice can be given to secure us from it than that of St. Paul to Timothy 1 Tim. 4. 16. Take heed unto thy self and to the doctrine It concerns us first to take heed of our selves to our Lives and Conversations We have many observers whose malice makes them critical and curious They lay in wait for our haltings and are glad at heart when they have caught an opportunity to revile us we are encompast on all hands by those envious pryers by the debauch'd on the one side and the Schismatical on the other The roaring Lyon is before us and the wily Serpent in the next ambush one would fain have an occasion from our miscarriages to tear and violate the honour of all Religion and the other to spit its venome against that which we profess It behoves us therefore to beware and to walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise because the daies are so evil In order hereunto I humbly recommend these Cautions in paticular that we take care not to be found guilty of 1. Pharisaism 2. Immorality or 3. Negligence in our calling 1. Pharisaick righteousness and Phantastick heights of zeal beget great respects and venerations among the vulgar but contempt among those of better-understanding and there is nothing whereby Religion hath been more expos'd in the present Age than this Plain unaffected righteousness and sincerity is accountable in all times and hath still reputation among the most knowing but the flanting shews of the Pharisee are despised assoon as they are understood Our Righteousness then must exceed his not in pomp and appearance but in reality and sincere practice There is no one that understands the nature of Religion the constitution of our Church and the temper of the Age but knows it to be the present interest both of Church and Religion that Pharisaism which is the general humour that runs through all the Proud Sects should be discountenanc'd and detected and therefore we should take heed that we do not encourage the spreading vanity by any conformity unto it Indeed there is no other way lesenow to make us popular and to Crown us with the applauses of the people and those who affect that sort of glory and reputation are under great temptation to square their discourse and lives according to those vain models but those Ministers deserve to be despis'd that are possest by that low spirited ambition and do not prefer the pleasing God and Conscience and the few wise men before the pacifying the humours and receiving the caresses and applauses of ignorant and giddy Phantasticks and there are no sort of men worse enemies to this Church than these who while they pretend to be of it promote this spirit and humour that destroyes it 2. We ought on this as on all accounts else to shun all Immoralities of practice Vice makes any one contemptible among good men and us despicable among all The worst have an abhorrence of Debauchery or any degree of Prophaneness in the Clergy The best things degenerated are worst 'T is true live we how we will the malicious world will find accusations against us but we must take care we do not justifie their reproaches Though as things are in the present Age we are disabled from doing much to promote Religion by our Doctrine yet we may disserve it much by our lives The best that we can say doth but little good but the least evil that we do is cause of great hurt and mischief Men are hardned by it in their Contempt of Religion and we are made incapable of doing it or them any considerable service Or if we do nothing that is morally evil yet such is the world now that advantage will be taken of the least appearance every thing shall be urg'd against us that the wit of malice can make criminal And therefore it exceedingly concerns us to heed the Rule of the Apostle Avoid all appearances of evil 1 Thes 5. 22. we should take care not to come within the shadow of it We live in an Age in which 't is not enough for a Clergy-man to be innocent there is much wisdom and prudence necessary to keep that from having a stain upon it And though we be as harmless as Doves yet we shall not be thought to be so except we are as wise as Serpents Men were never more careless of their own conversations and never more exact observers and censurers of ours so that nothing will secure us in this Age from the tongues set on fire of Hell our only course is to be as much as we can out of their way And as far as our profession will give leave to draw our selves up into privacy and retirement For the Sea is too rough for us to be abroad upon it The summ is 'T is not possible for us to avoid contempt but we may avoid being accessary unto it if we take care that our Religion be not Pharisaical nor our practice immoral in reality or
to consider whether its pretended friends have not been and are not still great occasions of it The greatest part of Christians are incapable of judging concerning the truth or goodness of any Church or Constitution of Religion but are inclin'd in their opinion and affection by the general temper and practice of its professors and adherents Now 't is an almost universal principle among men that Religion and the Worship of God require the greatest seriousness and zeal where these are observ'd in peoples carriage to their particular Church the most are usually inclin'd to have respect for that on the other side when the members of any Church are cold and unconcern'd or wanton and irreverent in their Religion such a temper when it comes to be general draws popular contempt upon that Church and way This at present is the sad case of ours and I doubt it may be too truly said that there are no retainers to any Church in the world who are so little concern'd for it and the worship of God in it as the pretenders to the Church of England If we survey our several Congregations and consider our people we shall find but very few that carry themselves as if they had any conscientious affection to the Religion they profess If the Estimate be taken from those that are constant or frequent at the publick Prayers in Cathedrals or other Churches certainly the number must be acknowledg'd to be very small and if we reckon only such that carry but the appearance of serious Devotion it will be yet less so that the Church may almost be tempted to say with him There is not one godly man left the righteous are minished from among the children of men There are indeed multitudes who will tell us they are of this Church when they give us no ground but their bare word to believe they are of any While they talk of owning and adhering to the Church they will not afford the solemn worship of it as much as their bodily presence as long as the Devil and their Lusts have employment for them elsewhere They carry themselves to it as to a matter of the greatest indifference will go to Church now and then when time lies upon their hands and they are in the humour for it and then again never think of Religion or Worship till another accident excites them And when they come to such Sacred places as this with what rude boldness do they enter Gods house and how much carelesness and irreverence do they express in their very looks and garb Confident negligence seems at present to be a fashion and the whole carriage after is sutable to this ill beginning What toying talking gazing laughing and other rude follies may we observe in the midst of the most solemn parts of worship and how much slightness and playsomness in speaking of serving God being devout saying prayers and such like serious things after it Now when these carriages are observ'd not to mention worse in those that say they are of the Church of England how readily doth it dispose the generality of men who judge by bare appearance to think amiss of the Church that is ordinarily thus treated by its members and to suppose most others that profess it to be of the same sort or not very different and so to despise the Church and all that adhere unto it This certainly is a very great occasion of her present contempt and if you would not be accessary to its increase and growth if it be capable of any more beware of this carelesness and irreverence to the Religion you profess If Religion be a real thing and not a meer imagination as nothing is more certain it then requires our greatest zeal and venerations and the most serious exercise of our faculties and endeavours no prostrations can be too low in the adoration of the God of Heaven no ingagement of soul too intense in praying for his blessing and praising him for his bounty no attention too serious in hearing of His Word no deportment too awful in His eye and special presence Let us all consider this and demean our selves in our worship as those that are in earnest Let the light of our zeal and devotion so shine before men that they seeing our works may glorifie God reverence the Church and vindicate it and us from the scorning of those that are at ease and the contempt of the proud Let us endeavour so to worship that the fervour of our piety may equal the truth of our profession and our actions in Religion may have some sutableness to our expectations from it And then though the Church and we are filled with contempt yet we shall be clear from any imputation of the guilt and our souls may be at ease though we are scorn'd by the Proud Preach'd at a Visitation SERMON VI. MORAL EVIDENCE OF A Life to Come The Second Edition SERMON VI. MATTH XXII 32. God is not the God of the dead but of the living NOtwithstanding the manifold and immediate Transactions of God with the people of the Jews yet were they a dull and stupid generation addicted very much to the matters of sense and indisposed to things of spiritual and invisible nature Yea there was a great and famous Sect among them that denied a Life to come and the Existence of immaterial beings For the Sadducees say there is no Resurrection neither Angels nor Spirit Acts 23. 8. These put the Question here to our Saviour in a case of a woman who successively had seven Husbands whose Wife she should be at the Resurrection from ver 22. to the 28. which captious Query they intended for an Argument against the Doctrine of another Life Christ answers directly to the objection by telling them their mistake of the state and condition of that Life since they neither marry nor are given in marriage that have attain'd unto it but are like the Angels of God ver 30. and then takes occasion to prove the Resurrection or Living again of the dead out of the writings of Moses the only Scripture the Sadducees allow'd ver 31 32. But as touching the Resurrection of the dead have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living The former clause of the verse cites the Scripture which is the ground of the Argument the latter is a principle of Reason and both together infer That there is a Resurrection Now the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection of the dead undertaken to be shewn was not the Resurrection of the body though that be a great truth also since the argument doth not reach this For one who believes that the soul lives after death may say That God is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob though the body doth not rise for they are living in their souls which
shall be becomingly employ'd and gloriously improv'd II. Our Passions in the present temper of them afford us evidence of another Life and Being As to which we may consider them 1 in their natural disorders and 2. in the regulation of them by reason and vertue 1. Let us reflect a little upon their present disorders In our first and growing years we are unavoidably led by Sense and bodily affections and before Reason comes to any considerable degree of exercise our passions are commonly too strong to be govern'd by it Yea they maintain war against the Laws of the mind and lead us into captivity to the Law of sin and death Rom. 7. They fight against reason and one another and make a tempestuous troubled Sea within us Isa 27. 20. so that we are driven by them upon Rocks and quicksands and our peace and happiness is made a prey to the waves Isa 48. 22. All the evils of the world bear testimony to this Reign of passion and the History of all ages is full of the sad issues of violent affections Which things do plainly prove that this is not the only or the proper Life of man For certainly Reason was intended to be the ruling principle in reasonable creatures and this Reign of passion is an usurpation in our natures that must not last always Passion is well defin'd by Zeno to be an unnatural over-boiling motion and 't is not credible that reasonable creatures should during their whole being continue under violent hurries and brutish force 'T is not to be suppos'd that our light shall always be darkned in an Eclipse and muffled up in clouds the Moon and Stars may rule the night but if there be a Sun there must be a day in which it shall govern Reason will have its time of Rule as Sense and Passion have had theirs and that must be in another world for there is but little of it in this I say little of it but some there is and the Empire of Conscience is begun in the vertuous This is the other thing in the temper of our Passions to be consider'd viz. 2. The Regulation of them by vertue and Reason This is the beginning of a new Life a Life proper for men which in the best is weak and defective here and arrives not to any very considerable height of perfection hence also we may conclude that there is another Life in which those divine inchoations shall be compleated For as from the obscure discoveries of Sense in an Infant in the Womb we may argue there is another state wherein the sensitive faculties that have begun to shew themselves shall act with more advantage and perfection In like manner those Essayes of the soul towards a better Life in the vertuous is an Argument that indeed there is one and that this present state is but the Womb of the future These are the first draughts of the divine nature and Image and God will not suffer it to die in imperfect rudiments The blushes of the morning are an earnest of an ensuing day The Chaldee Oracles call these the Tokens and Symbols that God hath inserted in the Soul they are the first-fruits and no doubt the harvest will follow The tendencies of lower nature do not use to be altogether in vain much less shall the beginnings of the divine Life and the resemblances of the immortal Deity All life is immortal saith Plato and certainly the seed of this noble and spiritual one shall not perish God will not leave his Image in the grave nor suffer this spark of him to see corruption The summ is The Regulation and Government of Passion is a new Life begun the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the true proper rational Life as Plotinus calls it but in this world 't is very incompleat and defective and therefore there is another in which it shall grow up to the fulness of its stature and perfection I come in order to argue the same III. From our Desires and Appetites in two instances viz. 1. Their dissatisfactions with the things of the present World and 2 some Tendencies of them towards another 1. I begin with the unsatisfiedness of them Our desires are too wide for our enjoyments and there is a thirst in the soul that is unsatiable When we have one thing we want another and our appetites are always craving There is not bread for the hungry soul nor any fitting entertainment on this side the Sun We flatter our selves with fancied satisfactions at distance but when we come near we find not the happiness and content we expected And as Children think that at such a Hill they should touch the Skies so we phancy that in compassing such or such designs we should be happy but when that is done we see as much beyond us and learn that in appetities there is no Term or Horizon Now these dissatisfactions with the things of the present world which are no sullen or Cynick humours but the complaint of all mankind afford an Argument of much probability that we were not made for this state only nor chiefly for it For all Faculties are satisfied with the due measures of their proper objects and every thing rests in its own Element And therefore the restlesness and inquietudes of men in the present Life are an Argument that we are not yet where we should be but that we were design'd to live again in another Which reason we may improve by this further observation namely that the better any man is the less he is pleased with these perishing enjoyments The noise of Fame the pleasures of Sense and the pageantry of worldly greatness are to Him like the Rattles and Cherrystones of his Child-hood He hath lost his taste and relish of such entertainments And now if all the delights and comforts we are to expect were of this sort the best men are in the worst condition in losing all their share of their proper pleasure and felicity and living without taste among so many relishing enjoyments 2. The Bent of the desires of Good men towards another world is a probable inducement to believe There is another Indeed the greatest part of mankind is so miserably sunk into earth and sense that they feel no such tendencies or propensions but rather averseness to all things that do not gratifie the body and serve its interests But yet there are those who have strong inclinations towards another Life and the more vertuous any man is the earnester will his desires be after the state of Immortality which importunities and cravings of their souls give us some ground to think that there is another world and objects in it suited to their desires Otherwise those appetites would be in vain and the best would be most miserable while they quitted other satisfactions and grasp'd after air and delusion I come now to the last head of proof IV. Our Instincts or some natural propensions of universal mankind The instances I shall name are
of Imagination and proudly look'd down upon the modest and humble Believer who were full of mysterie and rapture scorn and talk but void of justice modesty and love These we have reason to think shall then be cast out and receive their portion with the Pharisee to the shame and disappointment of their confidence and their hopes In this Day shall the Errours and the follies that were recommended to the deceiv'd embraces of the Sons of men by frauds and Art paint and meretricious bravery be expos'd in their naked Deformities to the sight and contempt of all the world And that Truth and those Vertues that were persecuted into Corners and cover'd with dust and shame torn piece-meal by wrath and ignorance and scatter'd up and down in the Tents of Errour shall then be brought into the Light and cleansed from all debasing mixtures and represented in their native loveliness and beauty that they may receive the praises and acclamations of their ancient friends and acquaintance Yea and the acknowledgements of their now blushing and confounded enemies Upon the whole we see That the Faith of a Future Judgement is not misbecoming the severest Sons of Reason and Philosophy but is infinitely agreeable to the faculties of men and the Analogy of things I Come now to the SECOND main thing in the Text II. The Universality of the Subject to be judged the World so it is here And the Scripture elsewhere expresseth it in very general terms The secrets of men Rom. 2. 16. Every man Rev. 20. 13. The Dead small and great Rev. 20. 12. The quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4. 5. Now I shall consider the Universality of the Subject of Judgement in two great solemnities of it viz. The General Summons and the General Resurrection that follows both mentioned together 1 Cor. 15. 52. The trumpet shall sound and the Dead shall be raised 1. The Trumpet either some divine universal vertue or the voice of some mighty Angel crying Arise ye Dead and come to Judgement Methinks I hear that voice 't is full of Majesty and terrour 't is more loud than Fame and more general than the Light of Heaven 'T is heard at both the Poles in the Earth and Sea and Air and all Deep places Attend Attend Ye Sons of Adam Ye that are afar off and ye that are near Ye that begun with the Infant World and ye that liv'd in its latest Periods Ye that freeze under the uncomfortable North and ye that are hid under the remotest South Ye that dwell in the temperate Regions and ye that are scorch'd with the heats of the Line Ye that only cry'd and ceas'd to breathe and ye that went slowly and late to the Grave Ye that are yet alive and ye that have been Ages under ground Hearken Hearken to the Proclamation of the great King the Prince of Glory the Judge of Angels and Men The Day the Day of vengeance and recompence is come the Day of Terrours and of Triumphs The night is past Arise ye dead cease sleeping in the Grave Put on our bodies gather up your scatter'd parts summon your thoughts together and make up your Accounts The Tribunal is set the Judge is coming And ye living Inhabitants lay by your designs let fall your Traffique quit your pleasures and pursuits the time for these is done for ever done Eternity is in view Trim your Lamps the Bridegroom is at the door 2. And now the General Resurrection follows Behold the closest Vaults throw away their coverings and disclose the proud Families that lay hid in that stately darkness See how the loose Earth moves about the Cloysters of the Dead and the Grave opens all its doors to enlarge its Prisoners And lo a numerous people riseth from under ground to attend the great Assize of Angels and men They arise but are not yet alive Death sits upon their faces clad in dread and paleness They lose that motion with astonishment which they gained with their restored parts and are ready to be shaken into their former dust by the fear that hath seized their unsettled joynts They wonder at the Light and at themselves and are ready to drop back into the Graves from which they just peep'd out See here the mighty sits trembling by his Monument unconcern'd at the vain Epithets it gave to his flatter'd Memory and the delicate sighs with his first breath willing to return to darkness rottenness and worms rather than to the light that will discover the guilt and the follies of a Life of vanity and sin The Hypocrite droops to consider that his painting and his shame are to be brought out of the night and silence of the Grave into a naked and open day and the vitious dies again to think That he hath taken up his body from one Death to carry it to another and a worse Thus the world of the wicked shall all appear and all be concern'd in the Judgement that follows The Righteous shall rise also They awake with vigour in their souls and life in their eyes with gayety in their looks and transports in all their powers Their new warm'd blood moves pleasantly in its ancient chanels and the restored spirits dance in the renewed veins They are glad to meet the old companion of their pleasures and their miseries rejoycing at its rescue from the infamous dishonours of corruption and that 't is ready to pass with them into the promised and long expected Glories These are the First-fruits and the full Crop is near and their joy is beyond the joy of Harvest and we must leave the degree to be imagin'd that cannot be exprest And thus the universal World both of the wicked and the righteous shall appear on the Solemn Summons The Earth and Air and Sea and Death and Hell shall give up their Dead Rev. 20. 13. And so Adam and the Patriarchs and all the Ancient Sages with their Sons and Nephews to the latest Posterity shall stand up together before the Judgement Seat for all are subjects of the same general Empire and all are accountable for their Actions to the same Soveraign Judge And He is the Man whom God hath ordain'd to judge the world in Righteousness And this is the next thing in the Text to be consider'd viz. III. The person appointed The Man whom he hath ordain'd And this is the Man Christ Jesus even the Man who being in the form of God thought it no robberry to be equal with God Phil. 2. 6. The same is He who is ordain'd of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead Act. 10. 42. And now under this Head I shall shew how fit he is as man for this great and solemn office in these two particulars 1. He is fit to be the General Judge as Man because he descended to the meanness of our condition 'T is but just that He who laid by his ancient Glory and cloath'd himself in the Livery of guilt and shame should re-assume
that Spirit to which they are most opposite Thus when warm and brisk Sanguine presents a chearful Scene and fills the imagination with pleasant dreams these are taken for divine illapses for the joys and incomes of the Holy Ghost When heated Melancholly hath kindled the busie and active fancy the Enthusiast then talks of Illuminations New Lights Revelations and many wonderful fine things which are ascribed to the same Spirit But when Flegm predominates and quencheth the Fantastick Fire rendering the mad man more dull lumpish and unactive then the Spirit is withdrawn and the man under spiritual darkness and desertion And when again choler is boiled up into rage and fury against every thing that is not of the Fantastick cut and measure this also is presumed to be an holy fervour kindled by that Spirit whose real fruits are Gentleness and Love Thus then doth the Devil devise to disgrace the Spirit of God and its influence by those numerous vile and vain pretensions which he thinks a likely means to extirpate the belief of the agency of the Spirit and to render it ridiculous But again 4. Satan deviseth against Gods own glory by designing against his worship Which he doth by endeavouring to destroy its reverence under pretence of Spirituality God requires to be glorified in body and in soul which are his and Satan sets the worship of one against the other that he may destroy both Thus when under the Law Religion required the Pomp and Solemnity of external Rites and Usages the subtle designer drives it on in that method so far that at last the Spirit of Religion was lost in the ceremony and the life and substance in the circumstance But when Christianity came into the world to abolish that ceremonial oeconomy in order to the establishing a more spiritual frame of Worship then doth Satan turn with the Tyde and puts on the semblance of a Zealot for Spirituality which he prosecutes so far till at last in the Gnosticks and other aiery Hereticks he had run Religion out into meer empty Fantastick Notionality In like manner where in these latter ages the world hath been disabused and hath detected the vanity of the formal outside Religion of Rome There doth the designer fall in with the Current sets up for a Reformer and mightily contends for the Spirituality of Worship He gets into the Pulpit and there with hot and sweating zeal he crys up the purity the purity of Religion and never leaves canting on the subject till he hath fired mens tongues against every matter of decency and order as formal and Antichristian And when he is shut out of those high places he creeps into corners and inflames the Spirits of the zealous and the ignorant against all harmless circumstances of Reverence and Decorum And so far hath he prevailed in this device as to drive those of warm affections and weak heads from all due external Reverence to God and things Sacred For these well-meaning people being frighted by the terrible noise of Popery Antichristianism Superstition things they have learnt to hate but not to understand boggle and fly off from every thing their furious Guides have marked with this abhorred Character And thus a rude and slovenly kind of Religion hath made its way into the world and such a sordid carlesness in matters of divine worship that should a stranger come into the assemblies that are acted by this Spirit He could not by their carriage imagine what they were a doing and that they were about holy Offices would perhaps be one of the last things he could conjecture Thus bold and sawcy talk hath crept into mens prayers under the pretence of holy familiarity with God nauseous impertinent bawling under the cover of praying by the Spirit and all kind of irreverences in external demeanour under the shelter of a pretended Spiritual worship And thus the design of Satan is successfully carried on in the world which is to subtilize Religion till he hath destroyed it To make it invisible that he may make it nothing And this is another way whereby be betrays those who are Ignorant of his Devices And thus I have dispatcht the first General viz. Satans Devices against Gods glory From which I descend to the second viz. Satans devices against the Peace of the Church which while it stands in its main and united body is like a mighty mountain unconcern'd in the tumults in the air while the blustering winds and tempests assault but cannot prejudice or disorder it And therefore the Designer endeavours to divide what he cannot deal with in its knit and combined strength He strives to crumble it into Sects and Atoms that this mountain may become an heap of Sands which he may blow up and down and scatter with his winds and so at last become a plain before him For which Design he hath two main instruments and Devices viz. 1. Pharisaical Pride under the cover of Religious strictness And 2. Intemperate Heat under the notion of Holy and Divine Zeal These are the chief Engines for the dividing purposes 1. Then he hatches and fosters a Spirit of Pride and Sectarian Insolence a sure and fatal Divider under the specious pretence of Religious strictness For where he perceives he cannot succeed in his designs of debauching the world and propagating open prophaneness and Impiety He shifts his shape puts on the cloathing of light and wraps himself in a Cloak spun of strict and severe pretensions and in this habit puts himself among the proud and conceited Professors These he and their own vanity gild and adorn with all the glorious names and priviledges of the Gospel and when they have incircled their heads with their own Fantastick Rays and are swoln in their imaginations with a tympany of ridiculous greatness They then proudly contemn all but their darling selves under the notion of the formal the moral and the wicked and scornfully pity the poor and carnal world that is all that are not arrived to their conceited pitch and elevation and now having thus dignified themselves and debased others they herd together draw the Church into their little corners and proudly withdraw from the Communion of others who have less conceit though more Christianity They bid us stand off lest we pollute them with our unhallowed approaches and having made us as the Heathen and Publican they cry Come out from among them The true Church Soundness of Judgement Purity of Doctrine and of worship if we will believe them is confined to their Gange just as it was to the corners of Africa of old when their friends the Gnosticks were there Thus they swell and swagger in their fantastick imaginations till some other Sect as well conceited as themselves endeavour to take their Plumes from them and to appropriate these glorious Prerogatives unto their own party and then they bustle and contend Here 's the Church crys one nay but 't is here crys another till a third gives the lye to them
labours and their works do follow them THe more attentively we consider the Christian Religion in any of its parts we find greater grounds for the confirmation both of its Author and excellency so infinitely does it surpass all those writings of that nature which the great Sages of the World have with so much superciliousness on their part and admiration from their respective followers I may add too all things considered not without meriting due praise from us delivered to their Scholars And this will appear evident and undeniable if we but parallel them in any of the chief heads for instance in the principles upon which our Religion does proceed the precepts it contains and the rewards it appoints which division will comprize the summ of what we profess In all which the great Masters of Heathen wisdom do plainly discover either a great deal of Ignorance or malice in prevaricating that light they had reflected upon them from Jewish tradition so that it may be well doubted whether their Symbolick Divinity were not design'd rather to concel their own Ignorance in what they pretended to than to secure the rites and mysteries thereof from the vulgar's profanation For example 1. Take first the Principles those truths that are the Basis and foundation of our Religion such as are the Being and Nature of God the Creation of the World the Fall of man and his Redemption by a Messias the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection 't is plain the whole Philosophick world had none or but a very imperfect knowledge of almost all of them However some of their lavish Charity have endeavour'd to squeeze as much from their writings Nay that they were not without some knowledge of our greatest Mysteries viz. of a Messias under their Daimono-Latria and even of the Trinity in Plato's Triad and the Resurrection of the body under the Indians Palin-genesis But no body that has any veneration either for the Scriptures or but for Truth in general but must see and acknowledge that all this is but tortur'd from them Nor may we deny this further that whatever Notions of this kind they had were but traditional in respect of their Origine and conjectural in reference to their ambiguity and uncertainty 2. The like is to be said of their Rules and Precepts of virtuous living For we may not detract thus much from them that they have recommended many excellent Institutes to their Sects You shall collect among them many very admirable sayings such as these To know our selves to abstain from vice to bear afflictions to do justly and speak truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do as we would be done by and many more Indeed for that kind of Divinity which was deducible from the Rules of common prudence and observation and depended not chiefly or solely upon Divine Revelation they have done extraordinary well And if they had not furnish'd us with so many famous examples of Vertue too it would not reflect so much upon the Professors of Christianity which in the spirituality of its precepts has as far exceeded all that they have writ as some of their Lives have most of ours though that be not to be imputed to our Religion unless it were justly chargeable upon the vitiosity or defect of its Principles or Rules Thus miserably however do we compensate the Divine culture and as if Nature abhorring so great a disparity betwixt mankind would thus ballance the Heathen with the Christian World by opposing their Imperfect Knowledge but severer Vertue to our diviner Laws but greater licentiousness in Practice Many of them having by as great proportions exceeded us in their endeavours after goodness as we do them in the knowledge and other means of it 3. Last of all which brings it to our present subject Christianity propounds nothing but upon the fairest and surest encouragement imaginable For the happiness of our Religion is both transcendently superiour to their discoveries and accompts of it and then also we are sufficiently and unquestionably assur'd hereof i.e. 't is not recommended to us upon plausible perswasions and inconclusive arguments but in the genuine sence of St. Paul's expressions 1 Corinth 2. 4. in demonstration of the Spirit and Power So that we see there is a kind of peculiar excellency in the Holy Scriptures above all the Systems of the greatest Moralists the foundation of our Obedience being laid upon clearer and better principles the practice of our obedience being carried higher by the spirituality of its commands and the rewards of our obedience being incomparably greater than what we can conceive much less could they promise or bestow 'T is the last of these that is contain'd in the Text and for which I am to be further accomptable to ye in the prosecution of the words I have read And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed c. Wherein we have these following particulars principally to be observed 1. The happiness of good men describ'd by its general nature they are blessed and by its integral parts they rest from their labours and their works do follow them 2. The Security and Evidence upon which this happiness is promis'd and asserted yea saith the Spirit 3. The time of its perfection and accomplishment partly in this life but not fully nor completely till death saying Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord. 4. And lastly the Influence which the consideration of these premisses ought to have upon us both in Life and Death in reference to Obedience and Patience And I. To begin with the description of that happiness those rewards which are propounded to us for the encouragement of our Obedience and Patience Which are so great that I am utterly ignorant by what measures to describe them to ye The nature of that Celestial bliss as far transcending all our present felicities by which we should judge of it as it does the very capacity of our meriting it Sir Francis Bacon has observ'd We can have but a very imperfect accompt of those things which receed any whit near those extreams of Nothing and Infinity because either by their parvity or immensity they elude or confound our knowledge And especially the latter which choak the understanding and is like the beholding of the Sun whose light and lustre by which we discern other objects marrs and dimms our sight Such is the transcendent excellency of our future bliss at once the delight and amazement of our Intellectuals In the description whereof our highest expressions are so far from being hyperbolical that they amount but to a Litotes so that after our utmost endeavours we must content our selves with St. Pauls account of it in his First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unutterable for that I take to be the meaning and not as we render it unlawful of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also unconceiveable So inevitably should we diminish