from Heaven 2 Cor. 5.2 What more fit than that the materials of this house should be taken out of its former body tho' greatly improved and advanced as I shall show immediately who can tell what proper pleasures God shall fit for our bodies and make them such noble Organs for the Soul as shall be mighty useful to it and who knows whether that can enjoy all that alone without the body as with it and that there is not some new faculty or satisfaction resulting from its animating and being united to a body the Scripture representing the happiness of the other state not to be compleat till the general Resurrection God alone can tell what faculties and powers are fit for his Creatures in any state and while we are in this we can know no more what is proper for us in the other than an Embryo not yet born can conceive what it shall need when it comes into the world were it not absolutely necessary yet it seems very agreeable to Justice to have both the body and soul that were partners in Sin or Vertue to be sharers in the rewards of it And if Christ the Captain of our Salvation is to be perfect Man as well as perfect God in Heaven and his glorious body is probably to be the visible Shechinah of Heaven it self the bodies of all good Christians ought to rise and attend him and be partakers with him of the same Glory that so human Nature even in its weakest and frailest part may eternally triumph over death and the grave and over him who had the power of both 5. And Lastly To take off the incredibility of the Resurrectionn let us consider how far the body that is raised is to be the same with that which is buried and corrupted We must not be too rigorous and exact in insisting upon the same body if we be we cannot be said to have the same body two days together Our bodies are always in flow and several parts of them are always going off by insensible Transpiration and others come in the place of them like a River we call it the same tho' its Water be always running and passing away and scarce any drop of it be exactly the same the next Tide or as we call that the same flame of a Candle all the while it is burning which yet is wasted every moment and supplied with other new parts of oyl so we have the same body in our old Age that we had in our Youth And this very body of ours that was some time animated by our Souls that this shall rise again the Scripture is too plain to have it denied as it is by the Socinians the very word Resurrection supposes it to be in some sense the same body and they which rise again are said to be the same that were asleep and lay in their graves so that if we had quite another new body given us at the day of Judgment this might be said to be new made or created but not to rise again But yet it is not necessary that every part of matter which made up this Body of ours at our Death and was buried in the same Grave should go to the making up of our raised bodies It is sufficient if this Earthly body of ours which we had in this World be the seed or seminal body as it were of the Resurrection body out of some part of which it is as truly raised as the new Corn or Fruit is out of the Corn or Kernell which was set or sowed so the Apostle gives us an account of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.36 37 38. in answer to that question How are the dead raised up or with what bodies do they come i. e. how are those whose parts have been so variously mixt with other bodies and turned into the substance perhaps of other men whose very bodies are again to be raised how shall every part of these men be raised up when perhaps several men might have parts of the same body and therefore in the Resurrection whose body shall it be since many had some of it to be their body and with what body shall every one come if it must be exactly the same and yet that is so very hard if not some time impossible To this the Apostle answers Thou Fool that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die and that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body which shall be but bare Grain it may chance of Wheat or some other Grain But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him and to every seed his own body God does give every Man his own body but not so exactly the same as not to be at all altered but as a building is the same which is repaired tho' with a great many other materials and as an ear of Corn is the same with its seed tho' it has taken in a good quantity of the moisture of the Earth and turned it into its own body Those who have curiously examined the Anatomy of Plants and Seeds tell us that in the little Gemm or Eye of the Seed is contained the whole draught and the perfect Stamina of the Plant with its bark and leaves and fruit and all the lines of it exactly drawn in little which are after to be fill'd up and extended by the heat of the Sun and moisture of the Earth And if so little a seed or kernel can contain all the parts of a large stalk or great tree who knows how much of our present bodies may be sufficient to raise the same bodies out of again and how small a part of this corruptible matter may be the Embryo as it were of our Heavenly bodies It is certain these our bodies shall be so much altered that that which is sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption and that which is now a natural body shall be then a spiritual not that it shall be turned into a spirit and lose its corporeal nature but that it shall be refined and made pliable to the Soul and Spirit and to all its motions and stand in no need of those things that belong to the animal life And yet it may still be the same body for all those new modes and qualities as a Jewel is the same substance of the Earth which was once a common fluid and is now turned into an Orient Pearl and the most clear Crystal Glass is the same matter that was before Sand and Ashes The best Philosophy tells us there is no specifick difference in matter but it is the same in substance tho' its outward figure colour and other accidents be altered which are but several modifications of the same matter and I can conceive God as easily to change these our mortal corruptible bodies into immortal and incorruptible ones as he turns the substance that every Animal eats into blood and spirits and the moisture and filth of the Earth that nourishes every flower and fruit into the
perfections which are the bounds also which the Divine power can never violate is so plain that it rather seems to follow and be fairly inferred from them for what more agreeable to Gods goodness than as that he gave us our Souls at first and put those Souls into curious and well framed bodies which are the other part of Humane Nature which makes us to be Men and Beings of such a rank and order in the Creation so that he should continue the same entire nature to us as long as he is pleased to continue us in being It wou'd be a charge methinks upon the Wisdom of God that he should give Man so curious a body above any other Creatures and yet suffer that to continue and last a much shorter time than the bodies of many other not only Animals but Plants and Trees do if he did not design that this noble fabrick should be rebuilt and repaired again after death and that the Soul should have a longer term of aboad in it afterwards and in reversion than it enjoys in this present life It would seem strange if these two Friends should be so closely and intimately united here but for a few days if they were not to meet again and dwell together for ever and that God should make us of such a compound nature in this life and of a quite other nature in the next this would not be to keep that wise order and regular course of thing that he does in the whole System of the Creation As to the Divine Justice that seems to be more exactly answered by raising the same bodies without which we are hardly the same persons that every one may receive in his body according to that he has done whether it be good or bad as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 5.10 that not only the same Souls but the same Bodies which have either glorified God by Suffering or any other Vertue or have been the Instrument of any sin should be glorified or tormented in another World and that the whole of Humane Nature and not only a part of it which the Soul is should be made capable of the everlasting rewards and punishments that are proper to it The Resurrection then is every way consistent with the perfections of the Divine Nature and is no way contrary to any natural principle of truth nor implys any contradiction in it and therefore is a proper object of God's Almighty Power and by the help of that may be easily effected and accounted for 4. And without this power of God nothing else can be effected in nature we must take in this not only to give an account of the Resurrection but of every thing else we see done before us and of every effect and appearance in the visible World how we were made at first and how our bodies were formed is as perfectly unaccountable without taking in the Divine Power and Wisdom as how we shall rise again and so is every other Mystery of nature if we well consider it and follow and trace it thro' all second causes it will necessarily bring us to the first and we must resolve all at last into the Power and Wisdom of that How we move our bodies by the thought of our minds we know no more than how God shall raise them what directs the spirits into such Tracts and Muscles and by what pullies they draw up the heavy parts is so admirable a Mechanism that it requires the same Divine Wisdom as to raise the dead how we live how we think and how we speak is to a Philosopher as curious and as secret as how we shall rise every thing indeed is so in the Volume of Nature which has the plainest Characters of Divine Power and Wisdom every where writ upon it as being to teach every one that there is a God To look upward we see the Sun shines but can we tell what light is or how it streams from the Sun to our Eye how such a mass of sire should so long hold together without being quenched or lessened do we know how the Stars are sixt to their Orbs how those glistering gemms are set and fastned to the fluid firmament can we imagine what Pillars there are upon which the Earth is founded and what it is supports the heavy Globe and keeps it from sinking what it is that poizes and makes it swim in the liquid Aether and keeps it at so just and exact a distance from the heavenly Bodies so as to be neither frozen nor burnt up and can we be able to know what it is makes their motions so regular and harmonious so usefull and serviceable to the World what guides their mighty bodies in such even Tracts what draws the crooked Zodiac for the Sun or Earth to move in and keeps the violent and rapid matter from going on in an infinite streight line or some other way sallying and running out of order Can any man who justly considers these things give any account of them without a wise God and Almighty Intelligence not only a Sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father as our Saviour speaks Matth. 10.29 but not a stone can sall thither nor a spark fly upwards however necessary and natural that be without such a frame and such laws of matter and motion as nothing but a wise Being can establish or cause to be observed Why matter is thus figured and disposed and why such effects come from it we cannot tell as why grass is green blood red and not the quite contrary as we cannot of our selves make one hair white or black as our Saviour saith so neither can we tell why it is so but every Phaenomenon must at last be resolved into the Will and Wisdom of the first cause and thither all true Philosophy must bring us and the same Divine Power is requir'd in every the most common effect of Nature as in the Resurrection But 5. Our not fully knowing the uses and designs our bodies shall serve for after they are rais'd should not make the Resurrection incredible to us What use some say will there be of the body in another World when the Soul alone is capable of the rewards of it I answer who can tell but the body may be of extraordinary use to us in another World perhaps it is a necessary part of Humane Nature and we are not our whole selves without it perhaps the Soul is never to be quite naked and wholly stript of all matter and bodily indowment and that it is cloathed with a thinner Vehicle when it puts off the thicker and grosser flesh perhaps no Beings in the World but God himself are to be pure spirits which was a very ancient opinion of some wise Men perhaps the Angels themselves have material vestures of a slaming fire and a resplendent brightness as they used always to appear and if the Human Souls are not to be uncloathed but cloathed upon with our house which is
most beauteous colour and most delicate tast Cannot he give the Soul a shining and a glorious body even out of this corruptible one as well as he made the Sun and Stars and all those luminous bodies out of the dark and gloomy Chaos Cannot he make our bodies to shine as the Stars of glory as well as the Stars themselves which tho' Heavenly bodies yet are of the same substance with Earthly matter Cannot he make our bodies which are now a clog and burden to the Soul to be but like so many fiery Chariots to carry us up to Heaven or like so many Wings to move us nimbly where-ever we please and fleet us thro' all the Heavenly Regions that are above Cannot he do this as well as he has given Wings to the flame and made that which arises out of smoak and foot to cast forth rays and lustre and mount upwards The glorified bodies of Men or Angels are generally in Scripture compared to flame and light their countenance is then like lightning and their raiment white as snow as the Angel is described Mat. 28.3 and as our Saviour when his body was transfigured his face did shine as the Sun and his raiment was white as the light Mat. 17.2 and so shall the bodies of good Men after the Resurrection be turned into such pure and glorious bodies that they shall raise splendour and beauty all about them which tho' it be a great transmutation yet by many the like instances I have given is neither impossible nor incredible to conceive The bodies indeed of wicked Men will be very much altered and lose their animal and mortal nature but they will be gross and heavy and sink their Souls into the regions of Hell and Darkness they will be like so many dismal and filthy Dungeons to keep the Soul in chains of everlasting Darkness or like so many poisoned shirts like that of Hercules that will scorch and inflame and torture them beyond expression and sticking close to them burn them with poisonous flames and fill them with the perpetual stench of sire and brimstone How the bodies of wicked men may be made the Instruments of torment to their Souls is easie to imagine from the exquisite pains they often give them here from whence we may conceive how they may be contrived to be the dreadfull racks of eternal death where the miserable wretches may be always suffering the pains of death without dying and on which they may be made to lie for ever raging and gnawing their Tongues for pain and blaspheming the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores to wit of their bodies as they are described Revel 16.10 And here I could stop and offer one thought to those who are so fond and tender of their bodies here who are for indulging them in every Lust and every Pleasure and think Happiness lieth in the mere delights of the body what they will think of having these pretious parts these dear bodies thus eternally and exquisitely tormented for the sake of a few paulcry sins which are but for a moment but having defended and consirmed this article of our Christian Faith the Resurrection of our bodies I must name but one general use of it and that is Let us all of us so live as if we heartily believed it without making any the least doubt in our minds about it let no mists of Infidelity overcast this Faith of ours which as it is certain by Revelation so is far you see from being incredible by reason which was the point I was to consider and make out It is a great satisfaction to ease our thoughts from some difficulties about it and have the understanding as the eye see things clearly without a film over it But these articles of faith are not only for Contemplation and the Entertainment of our reason but like Principles and Theorems in other Sciences they are to be made use of in practice and to be drawn out and improved into use and action no truth in Religion no Article of Faith is worth making out or proving or satisfying our selves about if it be not some way or other usefull to the practice of Religion and be not influential to the making us good and vertuous in our lives but the Resurrection has such a direct and immediate tendency to do this as it carries in it the assurance of a future state both of Soul and Body that if we fully believe it and are undoubtedly perswaded of it it will do its own work and will necessarily promote Vertue and Religion and be effectual upon all our lives did not a secret Scepticism and Insidelity which is the Vice of our Age hinder and defeat the power of it Let the belief of it therefore be firm and unshaken upon our minds and let the efficacy of it be powerfull upon our Lives and Conversations there is nothing more incredible in the thing that our bodies should rise hereafter than that they were once formed and born there may be difficulties perhaps equal in the account of both but as no Man doubts the one so he that well considers will have no reason to dis-believe the other or to think it incredible that God should raise the dead Let it raise us to thoughts and to things above whither Christ is raised and where he sits with his glorious body at God's right hand Let us often ascend thither in our minds now whither we hope to ascend hereafter with our bodies as well as our Souls Let us consider that these Bodies of ours as well as our Souls were made for higher designs and better enjoyments then any here of this World and that they ought to be the subjects of Purity and Vertue now as they are to be of Happiness hereafter The Resurrection will raise our minds to a great many noble thoughts if we throughly consider it and really believe it and I hope we may be satisfied by what has been said The Twelfth Sermon HEB. III. 13. latter part Lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin THE Author of this Epistle advises in this Chapter those Jewish Christians he wrote to to take care that they fell not into that sad state and temper of mind their forefathers were in in the time of Moses Not to harden their heart now as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness v. 8. when tho' they saw the mighty works of God forty years and had daily Miracles before their Eyes and were fed and maintained by them and lived under a constant dispensation of them yet still a spirit of Insidelity and Obstinacy was amongst them and their hearts were hardned and they would not hearken unto God nor obey his voice but were kept out of the good Land by reason of their monstrous and unreasonable belief so it was also in the times of our Saviour when notwithstanding all his many Miracles done before their Eyes they were yet
in relation to our selves as well as to the World that is the prime and general cause of Mens being deceived into sin and the first part of its deceitfulness is by the immoderate and salse Opinion of those little Goods or present Enjoyments we may obtain by them Thus when our Fancies and vain Imaginations represent Riches and a great Estate as the greatest Good as the greatest Security Credit and Comfort and what will afford and bring in all other good things of this World this makes a Man make Riches his God and put his trust in 'em and Sacrifice every thing to Mammon and use any means to attain 'em because he thinks nothing so evil as to be without them and nothing else so good as having abundance of them So another fancies no happiness like that of being Great and above others of having the knee and the head and the outward marks and acknowledgments of superiority given him or to appear in State and Grandeur with a rich Train and splendid Equipage always attending him and he despises poor and contemptible Vertue in respect of all this and thinks as meanly of the greatest Wisdom without those as that does of him and therefore rather than part with those he will part with his Conscience and change his Religion rather than his place and will stick at nothing either to keep or gain his ambitious Ends and Designs Another who is a Voluptuary and thinks Pleasure the summum bonum the chiefest good he can taste or feel he hunts after it thro' all the Scents and Paths of Sensuality Luxury Lewdness and Debauchery and either Bacchus or Venus is the Deity he worships and the greatest Good and Enjoyment he fancies and imagines and has an Idea of is the Wine sparkling in the Glass or the Charms of Beauty or the other objects of sensual Pleasure and by heating his thoughts and inflaming his fancy his desires of those things grow impatient excessive and ungovernable Now if a man had used himself to consider seriously how little there is in all those things how very little in respect of the greater pleasures of a wise and easie Mind a good Conscience and the hopes of Religion and that all the true Pleasures of Life that are desirable to a Wise Man may be otherwise enjoyed within the bounds of Vertue and that the going beyond those is an unavoidable mischief to himself and to the World and that all those little sensual and temporary goods he is so fond of are at best but short and transitory empty and unsatisfying things but poor trisling satisfactions and mere gilded decaying Vanities that will all quickly perish and pass away so that our proper happiness cannot lie in them This would give us such true Opinions and right Apprehensions of all carnal and Worldly things in which the whole strength and temptations of sin are placed as would disarm and weaken it of all its power strip it of all its fine dress and false attire wash off all its paint spoil all its beauty and shining lustre whereby it imposes upon our vain fancies and weak imaginations and deceives us with a false Opinion of those small Goods Profits or Pleasures it can afford us 2. We do not at the same time compare with those the great evil that is in them and so do not judge rightly and impartially on both sides but determine hastily on one and so are deceived whereas to make a true Judgment and Estimate we should set the evil against the good and so weigh the matter and set the balance right between them but Alass Men are in too much haste to do this when they are so hotly and eagerly pursuing their Lusts when having the fancied good Pleasure and Enjoyment of their sins only in their Eye they never think or consider or take into their accounts the much greater and more numerous and more certain evils that belong to them and are inseparably annext to the commission of them if they did no Man would swallow the thin bait when he saw the satal hook under it None would eat the forbidden fruit tho' never so fair and pleasant to the Eye if he knew and certainly believed that Death was its bittter sauce and in the day he eat thereof he should die No Man would drink the sweetest draught or take down the most delicious morsel if he thought it would kill him Nature without any great deliberation refuses immediately and abhors what it apprehends to be evil as it is extreamly fond and desirous of what appears good and agreeable to it and the fear of the one is perhaps more strong and affecting than the love of the other as the sense of pain is greater and quicker than that of pleasure and therefore did it spy the Snake in the Grass the Serpent hid under the Bed of Roses and Violets it would not be invited by all their beauty and sweetness to lie down upon them and it would be quickly frighted and run from the tempter tho' he appear'd as an Angel of light if it saw his Cloven Foot Vice therefore always uses art to conceal its worst side hides its deformity and rottenness under a false paint and counterfeit colour and varnishes over its real evil with the fucus of some seeming good so the unwary sinner is drawn into its deadly embraces with its meritricious Looks and false Charms The venomous sting lies covered under the sweet hony and the sinner perceives not the Dagger of the Treacherous Assassin till he is stabb'd with it to the heart But a little Wisdom and Observation and looking about us would plainly discern the innumerable evils that sin carries in its bowels and is big and productive of which grow out of it as fruit from its proper root and are inseparably annexed to it as effects to their causes that can no more be divorced or rescinded from it than light clipt from the Sun and are unalterably setled upon it by the nature and constitution of things and the will and appointment of the first cause and Author of them How do many not only shipwrack their Consciences but their Fortunes too by their Vices in this world where we see abundance of those broken Vessels who have split themselves upon Laziness or Luxury Lewdness or Prodigality or some other wickedness by which they have ruined themselves here as well as hereafter How have others wasted their Bodies by the same courses as they have done their Estates And have sinn'd particularly against those as the Scripture speaks as well as against their Souls and been a kind of Martyrs in the service of the Devil and their own Lusts and endured more pains in their bodies to go to Hell than other Martyrs have done to go to Heaven How do they whose hopes and designs are only in this Life and who fear nothing so much as Death and think nothing so happy as to live long yet shorten their lives by their Vices and by
Nations have always believed there is a God and 't is no very civil thing to call them all Fools or Cheats for doing so 't is so much the interest nay the necessity of mankind that there should be one that all Government all Security all Society and living happily in the World must be lost without it to laugh therefore at this as either a Politick Cheat or a Melancholy Delusion on which so much depends both as to the benefit of the publick and the happiness and comfort of all private Men is only to show the boldest folly and ill-will both together and without any reason in the World to take upon themselves to perswade mankind that they are deceived in the most usefull and necessary thing to 'em that can be 'T is certainly the highest impudence and rudeness to run down those things and expose them as ridiculous which have been the greatest objects of Honour and Reverence to all wise men and to treat Religion and things Sacred with jest and drollery about which all the World has been the most serious and in earnest and to mock and scoff at that which others bow down to and tremble at This is only a more mad and daring bravery in wickedness and one of the highest instances of a corrupted and hardned Mind I shall add but another which is an effect as it were of this and that is 5. An industrious design of being wicked and glorying in it to make it their business to spread and promote it and to take pleasure not only in committing Sin themselves but likewise in those that do it This is to love Wickedness for Wickedness sake and out of pure opposition to Vertue and a direct enmity to Religion When Men make it their Trade and a kind of Profess'd Science to be Debauch'd and set down rules to themselves and others of being so When they can boast of their Wickedness and glory in it and assume perhaps more to themselves than they have been guilty of and charge themselves with such Sins as they never committed thereby to Triumph as it were in their mighty deeds and great exploits and to endear themselves the more to their Lewd Companions when they endeavour to out-do one another and out-vye their fellow Sinners in Oaths Drinking and Debauchery and give greater proofs of their highest proficiency in Wickedness and Lewdness This is perfectly giving up themselves to the Devil's Service and to toil and drudge in it as his greatest Slaves and as his Disciples to devote themselves to him and become sworn votaries to Hell and Wickedness and declare themselves Champions and Defenders of his cause and interest against God and Religion 'T is strange that Human Nature should be depraved and corrupted to these degrees but we see too many Examples of it in the World and we see too what is the cause of it namely men's being so strangely hardned and blinded by their Sins and having their Reason and Understanding and all the Faculties of their Minds so horribly corrupted and depraved by them 3. From what has been said I shall make the following Remarks and Observations 1. I observe from hence That our proper and truest happiness lies in the Perfection and Improvement of of our Minds and therefore we ought to take the greatest care of them 2. That Vice is the greatest Corruption and Depravation of the Mind and therefore we should not suffer that to grow upon us 3. I shall enquire into the Scripture-notion of God's hardning Men and whether that be any thing more than our Sins hardning us 4. From hence we may conceive and understand the misery and wretched state of the Devils and damn'd Souls who are come to the highest degree of this hardning 1. I observe that our proper and truest happiness lies in the Perfection and Improvement of our Minds The happiness of any Being must be suited and adapted to its Capacity and Faculties for otherwise it has no root to grow upon and the more those Capacities are enlarged and extended and have agreeable objects to fill and entertain 'em the greater is the happiness of it The lowest Creatures that have sense have very small Capacities and their Enjoyments are very little the more we rise in the scale of Beings the Capacities are greater till we come to the All-perfect Being We have bedily Capacities the same with the Brutes which can partake of such bodily pleasures as they do but these are very little and narrow and confined to few things and a short time We have much higher Capacities even like God himself whereby we take in all the truth that can be known and all the good that can be enjoyed and hoard up these immortal Treasures in our Minds and in the fullest measure of those consists our proper happiness as we are Men and Rational and Immortal Beings 'T is in our Souls those noblest parts of us that our Happiness lies and will lie for ever Our bodies are poor dying decaying matter that can afford very little Enjoyments and for a very little while the capacities of the mind are great and large and comprehensive and can reach not only to all things that are made but even to the God that made them and partake of a proper happiness from all of them for the more it increases its knowledge and grows up to a more perfect Understanding and to a more free choice and entire willing of what is good and the more good it enjoys and the more its faculties are enlarged and filled up with their proper objects the more Happiness and Perfection Satisfaction and Enjoyment it must have and this will be its Eternal Heaven when we shall be as like God as we can be and equal to the Angels in the proper perfections of our rational nature advanced to the highest degrees and the most unspeakable Enjoyments and Satisfactions 2. Vice is the greatest Corruption and Depravation of the Mind and therefore is our greatest misery it sinks and impairs the Faculties decays and weakens the Mind as a Disease does the body and fills it generally like that with pain and uneasiness as being contrary to its natural frame and to its proper and regular Operations Vertue is the Vigor and Health the Soundness and right Constitution of the Soul the Spiritual life which Religion and God's Grace would advance it to but Vice and Wickedness are the Spiritual death of it both in the Language of the Scripture and of the best Philosophers of Old their manner and custom of setting a Coffin in the place of him that had left the Schools and Precepts of Vertue was speaking the same thing in emblem and figure with the Scripture expression of being dead in trespasses and sins The loss of the Soul is justly accounted so great an one as the gain of the whole World will not compensate What shall it profit a Man says our Saviour to gain the whole world and lose his own Soul Matth. 16.26
receiv'd by his constant Preaching both in helping them rightly to understand and engaging them in a serious practice of Religion and by his Writings they are more generally known The visiting a whole Parish from House to House I cannot say to be a necessary part of the Pastoral care I rather lay it in faithfully and constantly discharging the publick Offices It would be a sad thing to be accountable for the neglect of what in great Parishes is confess'd to be impracticable this therefore can only be an occasional duty in which a Minister must be left to his own prudence who is best able to judge what good is likely to be done in this way and when I have heard our Friend say more than once that if he could see the necessity of it or those wonderfull ends it would serve he would throw up all his own concerns and apply himself wholly to it however he supply'd the want of that in the best manner he could and by ways he thought much more usefull to such as were dispos'd to mind the concerns of their Souls For the use of his Parishioners he first compos'd and afterwards by Printing it offer'd to their closer consideration his admirable Practical Discourse of Repentance wherein he has rectify'd many mistakes and loose notions about this Doctrine such as have had a very fatal influence upon the lives of many who all the while looked upon themselves in a safe state they are chiefly owing as I apprehend to their not distinguishing betwixt baptismal Repentance and the Repentance for willful sins many and long continued in after Men have covenanted with God for a constant course of obedience Two days before he died he thank'd God that he had lived to publish that Discourse Not said he That it is Wrote with that care and exactness it might have been for it was compos'd in parts and at several distant times but I think it may be serviceable which is the only end I proposed in it to teach the right knowledge and practice of that duty I am sensible that some have taken exceptions at what he affirmed of the invalidity of a Death-bed Repentance but 't is no more than is said by many others and as far as I see must be own'd by all who throughly examine that subject The Question is not what God may do or sometimes does by an extraordinary act of Grace but what he has covenanted for or what are the plain and indispensible conditions of Salvation required by the Gospel A Malefactor upon whom the Law has pronounc'd death may be pardoned by special favour and if a sinner who never repents till he comes to die be sav'd this is showing him more mercy than is covenanted for in the Gospel-Law of Life and in what instances God will abate of those Terms no Man can tell and 't is the highest folly and madness to trust to it without a particular Revelation That God will make allowance for Mens Circumstances in this World and judge their several cases with the greatest equity and proportion their rewards and punishments accordingly come within the Terms of covenanted Grace and Mercy but the Question is whethe a Minister of the Gospel who visits an habitually wicked Man in his last sickness can assure him he shall be saved on such a Repentance if it comes up to the Terms of the Gospel he may give him this assurance and then this Doctrine may be Preach'd yea and ought to be for all the Gospel-condititions of life and Salvation are to be published to all Such Preaching would be very comfortable to those who would be glad to save their Souls and yet are very loth to forego their sins and are not like to be perswaded to this as long as they have any hopes of securing them by repenting when they come to die These seem to be very plain consequences of allowing the sufficiency of a death-bed Repentance by the terms of the Gospel For his Parishioners he likewise drew up a Manual of Devotion to be used daily in their families and put a great number of them into the hands of the Collecter of his Tythes to be distributed among them he apprehended the decay of Piety and coruption of manners to be in great measure owing to the neglect of family Religion which be therefore took the opportunity after this to recommend in a Sermon preach'd before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen whose example was like to give the best Encouragement to it which they so well approv'd of as to desire him to publish it His thoughts were that the true cause of the general neglect of Family Devotion is the wrong notion Men have entertained of Forms of Prayer which is a thing so past all dispute that it must lie upon the Consciences of those who have denied 'em if now that the effects of that error are found so evidently ruinous to Piety and good Morals they do not in some publick way retract it and advise to the use of Forms without which the use of constant Family Prayer can never be retriev'd He was so intent upon doing good among his people that he was often proposing to himself and asking his Friends to think of something wherein he might be most usefull to them he endeavour'd to free the minds of other Men as he has done his own from false and loose principles in Religion the effects of which will in a short time appear in the Life and Practice His Religion did not lie in shows and meer forms of Godliness which we need not an Apostles Testimony to assure us may be separated from the power of it I take him to have been in that state described by St. John when he says he that is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God He would not I dare say for all the World have committed a known willfull and deliberate sin and I am sure would have been horribly afraid of himself if he had fallen into one such sin I could here give in evidence for what I say if it were necessary a signal instance of a vigorous sence of Religion and a resolved and confirm'd vertue such an one as is not very common I herein say no more of him than what in Justice is due and what by long experience and many proofs I know to be true of him he did not indeed discover those signs of Grace which some Men expect to find in the face he had not that affected gravity and down-look and dull humour which a Pharisee would perhaps have sought for as a visible mark of it He was always cheerfull and gay himself and would suffer none to be otherwise where-ever he came This I confess if any thing was an excess in him because it must be own'd that he would be sometimes merry at other Mens cost who could not bear up against the sharpness of his wit which I
cure this any more than any other Bodily Diseases and he that is afflicted with them must bear them as he would the Gout or Stone or any other Disease that is incident to us but since these affect the Mind more and the Mind also by its close Union and Re-action upon the Body does in great measure raise and excite or abate and allay those therefore it is a great part of Human Vertue and a proper Work of Religion to take as much care as can be of those natural Passions which are caused in 〈◊〉 those different Humours and Temperaments of Body for all Anger and First and the other Bodily Passions that are so troublesome both to our selves and others arise from them The Soul is the same in all Men not more inclined to any of those Passions by its Original make and nature than the contrary they all arise from our Body and our lower Nature and are the results of that and therefore they are in Brutes we often see as well as Men but the Soul by being Vitally united to the Body has a Preception and Sensation of them and such thoughts are necessarily caused in it by them Now neither the first motions of the Body nor first thoughts of the Soul upon them are sinful because they are both necessary but the Soul has a Power within it self either to consent or not consent to these Bodily Motions and Inclinations which we call Passions and this Principle of the Soul we call the Will I do not mean a power to consent to their first rising or not rising in us that is often necessary and unavoidable and so not within the power of the Soul but perfectly unvoluntary but then whether it shall continue such a thought that is excited upon such a Passion at least continue it so far as to approve and like it and consent to it and put it into Act if it can and actually execute it and let it produce any outward and lasting Effects this is in the power of the Soul and herein lies the great Exercise of its Virtues in governing and subduing the Passions and mortifying the carnal Lusts and Bodily Inclinations if it yields to those so as to commit any Unlawfull Actions or any sin in pursuance of them then it fulfills the Lusts of the Flesh and walks after the Flesh and is carnal and carnally minded in St. Paul's phrase Rom. 8.6 but if thro' the Spirit and by help of Religion it does mortify these deeds of the Body it shall live v. 13. If it suffer no sin to reign in its mortal Body nor give way to those Passions and Lusts so as to commit sin by them but with the greatest care and pains keep them within the bounds of Reason and Religion then it does Crucisie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts Galat. 5.24 not that they must become quite dead and extinct so that we feel no motions of them no they may remain in the best and most regenerate Man as to some inward motions of Concupiscence but they are not sinfull unless they conceive i.e. are consented to in the heart and bring forth sin in the life James 1.15 Now Religion is so to Govern and keep under all these Passions and bodily inclinations that they run not into Sin but it cannot quite cut them up and extirpate them it is to improve and perfect Nature by Grace but not to destroy it These Passions therefore caused by those Bodily Humours and Tempers which we are naturally inclined to these which are one of the greatest causes of the troubles and disorders of the mind and which bring the greatest Uneasiness and Perturbation to it and rob it of that Evenness and Calmness and Tranquility which is the great Happiness of it these Religion cannot so wholly remove and take away as that we should be perfectly free from them and from all the motions and risings of them but it will and must so far subdue and conquer them as that they neither have Sinful and Unlawful Effects upon others nor so far disorder our selves as to spoil and destroy the Peace and Rest and Quiet of our minds I do not mean that they should never disturb us for so they will a little as often as we feel them but not to that degree as to take away the Peace and Tranquillity of our mind and to destroy the habit and temper of it if they do we can never be Happy with them How Religion cures them and to what degree it must overcome them I shall consider afterwards at present I shall only observe that Religion does not wholly destroy and root them up nor alter our bodily Temper and Constitution but a good Man still lies open to the first motions of Anger Peevishness Melancholy and the like and may never be quite otherwise any more than alter his Complexion or his Stature and make his Hair White or black but he may have Peace in his Mind and Rest in his Soul notwithstanding that in the rational Frame and Habit and Temper of it founded upon the Hopes and Principles of Religion these are troublesome and uneasie to him and will also affect his Mind as well as any other bodily Pain and Disease but yet his Rest and Tranquility may be consistent with both those for 't is a rational intellectual Sense and Perception in the Soul which depends upon Principles and Rules and not upon mere Temper and Mechanism of body for then ill Weather as well as an ill body would alter and destroy it I come now to show how we may attain it which is the most considerable thing of all and when we have if we shall better understand it than by any other account of it like Health we know what it is tho' we cannot so well describe it and like ease and pleasure we can best Judge of it by feeling it 'T is as Tully calls it sanitas animi the Health and Soundness and good Temper of the Soul and when the Soul wants it it is Sick and under a Disease in Pain and Disorder We all know how good and sweet a thing health and ease is both of Body and Mind so that there need not many words to commend them how to get it and preserve it and recover it when it is lost is the greatest Question Our Saviour here tells us we may find rest to our Souls and obtain this Peace and Tranquility of mind I shall consider what the means are and by what ways Religion does effect this in the following particulars 1. Religion teaches us that Happiness lies chiefly in our Mind that that is the proper seat of it and that it lies not in things without us but is a Treasure in our own Breasts something within ourselves which belongs to our Souls and consists in the Perfection Improvement and Enjoyment of them this is in other words called the Salvation of the Soul restoring it to its lost Happiness and freeing it from the
Monitors of it in our own Bodies then what a melancholy thing must it be for a Man to think of going down into the place of darkness and forgetfulness to become a cold heavy lump a stiff dead Corps to have all his brisk and vigorous Spirits put out and extinguish'd and an end put to all his Pleasures and Enjoyments if he have not some Hopes of an after Immortality and of a better Life after this No Man could enjoy himself or be easie in his thoughts if he thinks at all who knows he must die in a little time if he has not the fears of Death took off and moderated by the Hopes and Expectations of Religion He that considers says Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the nature of his Soul and that Death Translates us into a better State or at least one that is not at all evil has made an excellent provision both for the Happiness of life and against the fear of death and he make this one of the great means of procuring this Tranquility of Mind thus to overcome the fears of Death for otherwise that will embitter all our present Enjoyments and spoil all our Mirth and Jollity and draw a dark Cloud over all our Cheerfullness and Gaity to have the thoughts of Death steal in now and then upon us as they unavoidably will if we have nothing to make them less terrible and frightfull than they will be to a wicked Man he must be sadly scared and amazed at any such thing and cannot think much less look on Death without sad Misgivings and Horrors of Mind and therefore can never have any setled Peace and Tranquility in himself but it will be all broke by one thought of Mortality by the hearing a Knell or seeing a Coffin for let him seem to put on never so much false Courage and to laugh at these things in the midst of his Company and his Vices yet he trembles at them when he is alone and a cold and clammy sweat feizes upon him whenever he thinks of dying in earnest nothing can prevent this Despondency and dying of Mind and arm even against the natural fear of bodily Death which will often come upon us and scatter all our other Comfortable thoughts but Religion which takes out the sting of Death which lessens and abates its terror and fortifies us against it by the Christian Hopes of being free from all Guilt and Punishment hereafter and of having a better Life and being in another World when we are to part with this here Death must be very terrible to the thoughts either of an Atheist by Depriving him of all Being and of all Enjoyment or of a wicked Christian by consigning him to Judgment and Punishment and Translating him to Eternal Death and Misery only Religion can take off its Terror and sweeten the bitter Cup with the Supports and Comforts the Aids and Assistances the Hopes and Expectations it affords to a good Man in his last Agonies and Extremities and at all other Times when he thinks of dying Lastly Religion infuses inward and unspeakable Comforts into our Minds from its present Privileges and future Hopes from God and his Spirit and their secret Communications Operations and Influences upon our Souls which are the highest improvement and the highest degrees of Peace and Tranquility of Mind Nature and Philosophy knew nothing of this but Revelation and especially the Christian give us the Knowledge and Assurance of it and many a Pious and good Christian has felt the Effects and Comforts of it in his Soul when he has had a Cheerfull and well grounded Sense that his sins are pardoned in and through Christ upon his true Repentance and that he is justified by the Grace of the Gospel upon the Terms and Conditions of it and that he has a Title to Heaven by God's promise upon his own sincerity and has reason to Hope that he shall partake of all the great and glorious things that belong to the Christian Salvation these will raise and inspire him as it did the Apostles and first Christians with a more than ordinary Comfort Peace and Cheerfullness of Soul and make him very Happy tho' in the greatest Sufferings and outward Afflictions 'T was this which made the Christians Rejoyce always in the Lord Rejoyce in Tribulations Sing and be Cheerfull in Prisons and be more than Conquerors over all their Troubles when they had these inward Comforts to support and raise and invigorate their Minds when tho' their Enemies were implacable and irreconcileable yet God they knew was reconciled to them and tho' the World hated thom yet he loved them tho' they had Tribulation from without yet they had Peace in themselves and Peace in Christ as he promised them Mat. 16.32 and tho' all things were very dark and dismal about them yet they had a clear prospect of Heaven and like St. Stephen could see that opened thro a shower of Stones and Christ sitting at the right hand of God One such view of Christ and Heaven tho' but by the Eye of Faith would give a Man a Pleasure and Courage of Mind above not only the Pains and Torments he endured but all other Pleasures he ever felt in his Life A great but ill Man could say That the Pleasures and Comforts of Religion even when they are Mistaken and Enthusiastick are greater than all the Pleasures of Sense and Carnality What are they then when they are true and well grounded how do they not only give Peace to a Mans Mind but even Rapture not only Calm and Quiet it but Transport it not only give it Rest and Tranquility but Extasie and Joy This is called in Scripture the Joy of the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 and the Peace of God which passeth all Vnderstanding Philip. 4.7 for we do not know how God who is a Spirit can Communicate inward Joy and Peace to our Spirits and convey a secret Sense of his Favour and Relish of his Kindness and make us taste and see how Gracious he is as the Psalmist speaks Psa 34.8 and lift up the light of his Countenance upon us There is more in all this not only in the extraordinary supports promised in particular Cases and Circumstances but in the ordinary Hopes and Comforts of Religion to a good Man than all the Pleasures of this World all the Charms and Enjoyments of Flesh and Blood can ever amount to and as we plainly feel Peace and Ease of Mind to be a greater good than any bodily Pleasure and know this from Sense and Experience as well as Religion so when this is heighten'd by those unspeakable Joys and that inconceiveable Peace which is derived from God and Religion and his Holy Spirit these give such an improvement to this Peace and Tranquility of Mind as nothing can equal but the Enjoyment of Heaven and which the wife Heathens and Philosophers knew nothing of in their Discourses on this Subject Religion and Christianity therefore out-doe
the Mind and Divine Life of the Soul like the Life Health or Beauty of the Body must be made up of the regular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Disposition and Symmetry of all the parts whereas one Fatal Wound or Mortal Disease may kill us as well as many and one great and Notorious Deformity will Disfigure a whole Face Vertue is like a straight line which must be every where even and regular but a crooked and irregular one may be so in a hundred parts Vice is infinite and knows no Bounds but Wanders and Roves through all the vast unlimited extent of Evil but Vertue confines us and keeps us within the narrow compass of what is Good and Righteous and made our Duty by a Divine Law These are from Religion its Terms Conditions and Constitutions there are two other Difficulties arising from our selves 7. A great Reason why Religion and Vertue are so strait and narrow a way is because our Natural Appetites and Inclinations which are necessary to our present state are so many and so hard to be all governed and kept within the bounds of Vertue and Religion these result from our Animal Nature and are a true part of us as Compounded of Flesh and Blood and are so much Gods Workmanship and Creation that we neither can nor ought to destroy them he allows us to gratify 'em within due bounds and did not put those strong Appetites in our Natures meerly to vex and torture and disatisfie us but we must Govern them with great care and not lay loose the Reins upon their Necks nor let them grow too Masterless and unruly at any time for Reason and Religion they are I confess the great Tryal and Instance of Human Vertue and they may become a snare to us and the great inlets into sin without due care and watchfullness and managery we must be therefore always upon our Guard lest this Flesh and Sense which we carry about us and are so fond of become a Traytor to us and Sin do not some way or other surprize us and enter at some of those weak places of Humane Nature we must stop and check the strongest Inclination when it would lead us into Sin and so far as it is Vitious Immoderate and Excessive destroy it tho' with never so much Pains and Violence we must pluck out a right Eye and cut off a right hand and destroy every Sinfull Inclination be it never so Natural to us and Crucifie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts so that we may keep them always within the bounds of Wisdom and Vertue and suffer no Sin to Reign in our Mortal Bodies that we should obey it in the Lusts thereof Romans 6.12 8. Lastly the Difficulties of Religion and Vertue arise mainly from the Prejudices and ill Customs and Habits of Vice which get possession of most Men before they well Understand Religion and the true good and necessity of it our first years are a life of Sense before we grow up to Reason and Understanding and then other things make the first Impression upon our Minds and fill them with weak Images and Fancies and Foolish thoughts and thus when our Passions are strong and our Reason is weak Vice generally gets the start of Religion and without a very Happy and Virtuous Education we contract a great many Ill Habits and Vitious Customs that increase and grow up with us and 't is very hard to break and alter those when we grow Wiser by Time and Experience and come afterwards to have a better Sense of Religion and better Apprehensions about it tho' we are then convinced of the Folly and Danger of our Sins yet we are become such Slaves to 'em by long use that it is hard to break their Chains and get loose from them and here lies the great Difficulty of Religion and this makes it to be a strait Gate and a narrow way especially at the first entrance into it when old Customs and Habits must be changed and altered former liberties retrench'd and denied old Companions must be forsaken and former Temptations must be overcome and Repentance which is the hardest part of Religion must be the first duty of it and must cure the old Prejudices and the long habits of Sin and in the Scripture phrase bring in a New Nature a New Soul and make us New Creatures and New Men this is a great Difficulty indeed but it is brought upon our selves by our own fault and we cannot blame Religion for it any more than we can the Physician or the Physick that is to cure us of a Disease that we have let run so long upon us that 't is hard now to perform the cure and it cannot be done without going thro' a long and tedious course and using a strict Regimen and very great abstinence from what may be hurtfull to us The great Argument to perswade us to all this is that we must die if we do not if notwithstanding all these Difficulties and hard Things in Religion we will not comply with it we must be Miserable for ever we must lose all that life and happiness those Glorious rewards it promises to us in another World and we must suffer all the Dreadfull Amazing punishments it there threatens There is no reserve against this but either by perverting Religion or by denying it either corrupting its Principles and by false and mistaken Notions giving our selves hopes of happiness without living up to the Terms and Conditions of it or else utterly denying it as a Cheat and a Falshood the latter is more impudent and daring and what but few hardned wretches can come up to the other is more common and as Pernicious and Destructive More Souls are lost by false Principles and the horrid corrupting of the Doctrines of Religion than by downright Atheism and Insidelity by trusting to a late and Death-bed Repentance and thinking a little matter will do the business hereafter as well as a very strict and a very good life by relying upon the Mercies of God and the Merits of Christ for Salvation without Obedience to the Gospel and performing such things upon which alone those are promised by thinking to be saved or justified by Faith alone without Works or a good Life and making Faith to lie in a presumptuous Confidence of Gods Favour or having an Interest in Christ without regard to the plain Terms and Conditions of Christianity or by the other superstitious Doctrines of having sins pardoned by an Absolution or an Indulgence and the like such Doctrines as these which turn the Grace of God into Wantonness which make Religion an incouragement to Looseness and Licentiousness and give Men hopes to escape Misery tho' they live in their Sins and come not up to the strict and severe Terms in Religion but to go to Heaven by some other Imaginary and Unaccountable way and to be saved upon some account or other by Grace or Christ without entering this strait Gate and
going in this narrow way these deceive Millions of Souls who tho they believe Religion yet do not live up to it but corrupt and pervert it so as to take off its Force and Influence upon their Lives and make them never the better by it The other reserve which is a most desperate one is that of Atheism and Infidelity or an utter dis-believing all Religion or at least a comfortable Doubt and Suspicion that it may not be true and this I am afraid lies in too many Minds but then all Mankind have been out of their Wits in believing it for there have been very few either in the most Wise or most Barbarous Parts and Ages of the World but what have done so unless then we have been all Cheated with Books of Revelation and Histories of Miracles done by the Prophets of Old and by Christ and his Apostles afterwards which are better attested than any Actions or any Books besides that ever were in the World 1600 Years ago so that we may as well call in Question all the Greek and the Roman story as the Jewish and the Christian and when we have run into such a Frenzy of Scepticism as to do that and without having any positive proof against Religion and the Being of God and another World for it is impossible to have that and the greatest Atheist will not pretend to have any Evidence Certainty and Demonstration but that they may be true notwithstanding all his doubts after all this the whole Frame of Nature and the Wise contrivance of the World of the Heavens above and the Earth and Animals below is a standing Evidence as great as can be given of the truth of Religion in general and a Man's Reason must be wretchedly blinded with his Vices who doth not see it or who winks so hard that he will not discern it these wretched Reserves being therefore taken away I shall proceed to press the duty of entering in at the strait Gate and narrow way and propose the motives to engage us to this notwithstanding all the Difficulties I mentioned 1. Religion is a business of such importance that whatever straits and hardships there be in it we must not stick at those but resolve however to go through with it for our Life our Happiness our All our Eternal state lies at stake and depends upon it Our Saviour only tells us strait is the Gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto Life and wide is the Gate and broad is the way which leadeth to Destruction And this is sufficient if Life and Death be set before us whatever be the way to them we should look at the great Ends Issues and Consequences of things which are the mark a Wise Man always aims at and whatever means are in our Power to attain the one and avoid the other we should make use of without any long Counsel or Deliberation for no Man demurrs and considers whether he shall choose happiness and escape Misery Nature and Instinct prevent our Reason here and we are made with an inward spring which runs of it self to the one and flies from the other whenever we truly apprehend them and therefore did we consider what that Life is that Eternal Life of Happiness which Vertue leads to which is to live in the perfect Enjoyment of the greatest good and the purest Pleasures free from all Alloys and all Approach of the least Evil and Trouble to live for ever with God and Angels in rapturous Bliss and Heavenly Delights and Joy unspeakable to be Possest of a Crown a Kingdom of substantial Glory and all such Good and Desirable things that this World affords but a faint Shadow and imperfect Resemblance of we should find this is a Life worth being fond of and seeking after compared to which this our present short life mixt with so much real Care and Trouble and so little imaginary Pleasure is but a sort of Death but walking in a vain Shadow and Dreaming of Happiness and hardly worth a Wise Man's choosing were it not for a better Life which is only worth the name of Living where we are born into another World and Vertue shall give us a Glorious Immortality this is a Reward that will sufficiently Recompense our short Labours here and were Religion never so Difficult yet the worth and greatness of that were our Hopes and Desires of it proportionable to it would inspire us with new Vigour and Resolution and convey Strength and Power enough to carry us through them all for what will not a great reward make Men do whither will they not Travel where will they not fight what danger will they Flinch from what Labour will they Refuse when a certain and great reward is offered to ' em And had we but as good thoughts of Heaven as the Soldier has of Honour and Victory the Merchant of Gold and Gain and the Husbandman of a good Harvest we should never think much of all the Pains and Difficulties that are in Religion were they a great many more than they are as on the other side if Men had but a due sense of that Destruction to which the wide Gate and the broad way of wickedness leads 'em and the Sad and Dreadfull Condition their Vices will bring 'em to in another World did they consider what exquisite and amazing Misery both of Soul and Body is wrapt up in those Words of Hell and Damnation no Vice tho' never so Charming would make 'em endure it for one day no Pleasure of Sin for a Season would make 'em bear it for so long a time as this Life is and nothing would ever tempt 'em not only not to suffer it for ever but to run the hazard and venture of it were there not a thousand times the reason to fear it that we have by Religion and were it but meerly probable or but just possible which Atheism it self can never deny yet no Wise man would expose himself to such a Dreadfull and Irretrievable danger for the Poor and Pitifull Temptations that are in the greatest Sin But 2. Besides the Consideration of another World Religion with all its straitness and hardship does not abridge us of any Comfortable Enjoyments of this World nor Deprive us of any of the true Pleasures and good things here which a Wise Man would Desire or which our Nature was made for for they may be all enjoyed within the compass of Vertue and allowances of Religion and that with more Convenience and Advantage than in a Course of Vice and Wickedness Religion does not Deprive us of any good proper to our State and Nature nor tye us up from any of the Comforts or Pleasures of Life with a peevish severity and moroseness with a touch not tast not handle not but only restrains us from what would be Evil and Pernicious to us if it were allowed us keeps us from the forbidden Fruit and from those excesses and extravagancies that are Destructive to
to it we may not be able to gain an Estate or compass such a Wordly Design let us do what we can in it but no Man shall miss of Heaven but thro' his own Fault and by his own Negligence and Carelesness 6. Many Sinners take more pains and trouble and run thro' more difficulties to compass their vitious Designs and commit their Sins than a good Man does in gaining Heaven and practicing the hardest Vertues and Duties of his Religion For thus how restless and unwearied and indefatigable are the Covetous and Ambitious the Revengeful and Maliticious or the Lustful and Debaucht to attain their Ends and gratifie their extravagant Desires and Inclinations How do their several Lusts put them upon the hardest Drudgery and make them Toil and Labour Watch and Attend Project and Contrive and be at more pains and trouble to undo themselves for ever than would save their Souls and make 'em Happy for ever The Devil is much the harder Master of the two and puts his Slaves to more vile and uneasie work in the Servitude of Sin than God does his Children and Servants in the doing the hardest part of their Duty and many have been greater Martyrs in the Devil's Service and gone through more for the sake of their Lusts than other Martyrs have done for heir Religion and for the sake of Heaven Tho' Vice seems more Natural as falling in with some Propensities and Inclinations that are within us yet how must a man at first offer great Violence to himself and to the tender sense of his own Mind before he can be brought to commit a great Sin With what Reluctancy and Self-denial as great as any that Vertue puts upon us does he part with his first Innocence and enter upon a Debauch till by degrees he grows a less Modest and more Couragious Sinner and is led on at last to commit it with greediness and it becomes Natural to him and 't would be no great difficulty for him to leave it but 't is only the Custom and Habit makes it so and not any thing in Nature or in the thing it self For let the Customs be equal on both sides and let a Man be as long used to Vertue as he was to Vice and he shall find that as Natural and agreeable and as hard to be overcome as the other so that as the Scripture represents it it is as hard for him that has been accustomed to do evil to learn to do good as for the Aethiopian to change his Skin or the Leopard his Spots ' Jer. 13.23 So whosoever is born of God i. e. a very good Man doth not commit sin and he cannot sin because he is born of God 1 John 3.9 But Lastly and to conclude it ought to be no manner of Prejudice to Vertue that there are but a few that enter the strait Gate and find the way to Life and many that go in at the wide Gate and the broad way that leadeth to Destruction as our Saviour says This ought not to be regarded by us as a Discouragement to Vertue or as any good reason to be wicked for Company tho I doubt it is a very common and prevailing one and draws a great many into the broad way because they see such great Numbers in it and they do not care to be singular nor to be Reproached for being so but are willing to do what they see so many others do and hope to escape as well as the rest and that they run but the same risque and hazard that they see so many Thousands do besides and so they resolve to venture as well as others let the Preachers say what they please Now this however common and powerfull it be yet is the most unreasonable thing in the World for is any man in another case willing to be sick or to die for Company or for the sake of example Would any be so Easie or so Complaisant as to pledge another in a Cup of Poyson or would he not stop the mad frolick when he saw the rest of the Company drop down Dead before him Is any Man unwilling to avoid the Plague if he can because there is ageneral Infection and because so many of his Neighbours or Acquaintance have died of it Would any refuse the saving his life and escaping if he could upon a Plank because the rest of his Company are Sinking and Drowning Did Men think it as much worth their while to save their Souls as their Lives how many soever lost them had they as Just and terrible Apprehensions of their own Damnation as they have of their Dying the Temptation of Example and Company would be quickly taken off and signifie nothing For alas what Comfort will it be in the Flames of Hell to hear so many others Roaring and Howling in them their hideous Cries and Tortures and Lamentations will rather encrease than lessen them and make it only a more sad and dismal Scene of Terror like that of a whole City or Country swallowed up by an Earthquake or overflowed with the Eruptions of a burning Mountain and the liquid streams of Fire and Brimstone No Man who knows what it is to be Happy but would wish to be so tho he were alone and no Man who knows that vertue alone is the way to life and happiness but must chuse to be Vertuous tho' he saw never so many others wicked let them Reproach and Laugh at him as long as they please for a Man singular and by himself let them count his Life Folly for being so strict and precise if it be in the great matters of Vertue for not drinking to the utmost pitch nor daring to swear the least Oath nor venturing upon a Debauch or any Common or any Modish or Fashionable Vice the Reproach and Scandal of which is took off by the great Party and Number it has of its side but living up strictly to the Rules of the Gospel and the Terms of Salvation there laid down without any such abatements as the loose Opinions or loose Practices of others are willing to put upon them since God will not alter his Methods or Judgments by any of those let them I say Condemn on Deride him never so much for this and call him Precise Fool or Formal Saint and the like yet no Man that knows the good of Vertue will be Laughed out of it by a Nick-name or be asham'd of being singular in that any more than in any other Excellency of Learning Knowledge or Wisdom above others and I suppose none of those who are so much against singularity but would be willing to be Rich or to be Well and at Ease though never so many others were Poor or Sick and in Pain and why then not to be Vertuous and Happy tho' never so many others are Vitious and Miserable The Fourth Sermon MATTH VI. 19 20. Lay not up for your selves Treasures upon Earth where Moth and Rust doth corrupt and where Thieves break
the Aethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil Jer. 13.23 but with God all things are possible and he is said to give a new Heart and a new Soul and to make us new Creatures when he brings us by his Grace to true Repentance and 't is a kind of creating us again to new works a raising us from the dead a quickning a giving us a new life in the Scripture phrase when from bad he makes us good ones which is something greater than creating us at first because in the other there is no hindrance and obstacle in the subject as there is in this Many are the hardships and difficulties that a sincere Penitent finds in overcoming an unruly Appetite an irregular Passion a beloved Lust and Inclination which were all made so by the strength of Custom and long Habit and which would have been much easier mastered had they not been so long indulged and grown upon him Many a sinner when his reason is convinced and he sees the evil of his sins and would gladly leave if a faint wish would do it yet is such a slave to them by long Custom that they lead him Captive at their pleasure and he cannot break the Fetters and shake off the Chains that he has made himself and which are very uneasie to him now all this a Man is free from by an early Religion and a constant Obedience and being never engaged in the ways of wickedness which are so hard to get out of 3. There cannot be that full comfort and security in the Return and Repentance of a sinner as in a constant and unbroken Obedience all a Man's life for tho' there is certain Pardon promised and assured to such a Penitent yet no Man can be so sure that he has fully repented of any sin as that he has once committed it but there will be some fears and doubts and misgivings still in his Mind upon the remembrance of it which he can never be so free from as if he had never been guilty of it and 't is fit indeed this should always be that a Penitent should be always humble and a little afraid and should not be fully confident as if he had been always Innocent Fear is the necessary punishment and consequent of sin and guilt and the sinner should tremble at the thoughts of God's Judgments and the desert of his sin tho' they are not inflicted upon him and tho' he has his pardon sealed in the Blood of Christ yet he ought to look upon it with tears in his Eyes and a mixture both of Joy and Sorrow The Gospel declares only a general pardon to those who Repent but no Man can see his own name particularly expressed in it nor is he sure of it any farther than he is of his Repentance and a man of Fear and Caution and not of Presumption will have some doubts that his Repentance is not so full and so perfect as it ought to be and being once a Malefactor condemn'd both by God and his own Conscience tho' he hath reasonable hopes of Pardon yet will be more afraid to be Judged than if his Conscience had wholly acquitted him and he could never have charged himself with any great Crime for that will strike him with more certain fear than he can have certain hopes of his particular pardon 4. Neither shall such a penitent be so much in God's favour or so highly rewarded by him as a Man of more constant and greater Vertues This is a Rule I think of eternal Justice and follows from God's rendring to all Men according to their works as the Scripture speaks which would not be if there were not a proportion of the reward to the work as well as a reward in general God indeed out of his great Grace will accept a great sinner upon his Repentance and receive him into his favour and pass by and forgive his past offences But 't is his becoming a good Man qualifies and entitles him to this for God can love no other and the more any is a good Man the more he will be beloved by him and the more highly rewarded at the last day 't is great Mercy and Favour in God and what Christ has purchased for us to accept of an imperfect and after goodness and broken obedience instead of what is whole and entire which is his due and not punish us for our past Sins and Disobedience after we have left them as he might do in strict Justice but still 't is only our Obedience and Goodness which being after our Disobedience and Sin is called Repentance is acceptable and pleasing to God and it would be more so had it been more constant unbroken and uninterrupted and 't is only for that as a Qualification and Condition in our selves for which he will reward us and the more and greater that is the greater shall be our reward Indeed in case a Penitent is after his sins brought to love much and to obey much and to be more abundantly Zealous in good works and doing his duty to make amends as much as he is able for his past failures and repair the Divine Honour and express his Gratitude for the Mercy shown him and so takes care to rise to higher degrees of Vertue and perform more signal acts of Obedience so that his fall makes him rise higher and he redeems his loss with greater gain and improving more in Grace and Goodness afterwards this shall entitle him to greater rewards and to God's special favour not barely because he Repented but because upon his Repentance he became a better Man and went faster and made more progress in the ways of Vertue after he had got into them but he that never wandered out of them nor never stray'd into the ways of Sin but always kept on in the path of Vertue which he was early entred into is a thousand times more likely to go farther and make a greater progress in Vertue and attain to higher degrees and improvements of it than the other and consequently to be more highly rewarded by God the impartial Judge and distributer of rewards and punishments at the last day There are several mansions in our Father's house and several degrees of Glory in the Kingdom of Heaven those who have been more constantly and more highly Virtuous and Obedient or have done or suffered more for Christ and his Religion these shall have Crowns of greater weight and brightness and shall shine in a higher Orb among those Stars of Heaven who differ from one and another in Glory according to their different Virtues and Attainments 5. This makes us more truly Christians and more the Children of God and live more answerably to the Ends and Designs of our Religion for tho' Christianity is to restore and recover lost and undone mankind and does it chiefly by the benefit of Repentance which is the great Duty and the
need it or make use of it for tho' the goodness of it be never so great yet 't is but in order to an end which is to recover health that was lost and to restore us to that soundness that we wanted 'T is the great Mercy of God and the great Grace and Favour of the Gospel and the great Purchase of Christ's Blood to have the Privilege of Repentance granted to Sinners in so large and full a manner so as to be restored to God's Favour and reconciled to him upon their return as if they had never offended him to have all the guilt and punishment of their past Sins wholly taken off as if they had never committed them to be recti in curia pardoned and in as good state as if they had been always Innocent This should mightily encourage and prevail upon Sinners to Repent and leave their Sins when they are sure of this as they are by the Gospel When tho' their Sins be as Scarlet they shall be white as Snow tho they were red like Crimson they should be as Wool as the Evangelical Prophet speaks Isai 1.18 i. e. tho' they were sins of the deepest Die or highest Nature yet they should be wholly done away and forgiven upon true Repentance from which no Person is excluded How must this encourage the greatest Sinners if they have any sense of Religion or another World left upon 'em to come off from their Sins how comfortable must it be to a poor wretch lying under the sense of his own guilt and the fears and horrors of his own Conscience and the dread of God's Judgments and of Eternal Misery to have these glad Tydings proclaimed to him how will this revive his desponding Soul and chear his sunk Spirit and like a pardon brought to a Condemned Malefactor in the Cart or upon the Gibbet restore him to life and to unspeakable joy and gladness Now this is offered to every Sinner by the Gospel if he repent and turn from his Sins however great they have been and lead a new life and become a new Man and a new Creature before he dies What can be desired more by any reasonable Creature or what more can God offer Would any desire to live and go on in his Sins and yet be forgiven This is for God to give up his Laws his Government and to grant a Liberty to his Creatures to be Rebellious and Disobedient and have no Check or Controul upon them 't is the utmost a good God can grant or a wicked man can desire to be pardoned upon his Repentance and Amendment but his Repenting and Amending is with sorrow for what is past doing his duty for the future as he ought always to have done it performing that Obedience which he ought always to have performed and now this is the best thing next to the having done it and performed it always but it can by no means be thought to be so good as that Repenting is like a Man's setting up again that was once broke and compounding with his Creditors and paying a part he owed them instead of the whole God is pleased to accept of the broken and after-obedience of a Sinner for some part of his Life instead of that entire and unbroken one which is due from him all his life 'T is God's great Grace and Mercy to do this and what he is no way obliged to for he might have damned us for every willfull sin and never have pardoned us tho' we had afterwards Repented of it this is meer free Grace which we owe to Christ and the Gospel and God was no way obliged to it either in Justice or by his natural Goodness but he might have denied it to mankind as he has done to other of his Creatures the Devils and the fallen Angels but still the design of God in granting us this Favour and this mighty privilege by the Gospel is to encourage us to Obedience to perswade us to leave our Sins and to bring us to true Holiness and Goodness of Life when we have been faulty and defective in these before 't is not to encourage us in our Sins or give us any Licence or Dispensation to commit 'em because we may Repent of them this is a horrid abuse and perverting the Grace of the Gospel and turning it into Wantonness and Looseness but the End and Design of all this is to make those good men who have been Sinners to make those Obedient who have been Disobedient either in general or any instance Now therefore 't is much better to have been always thus to have been always Good and always Obedient thro' the whole course of our lives this is the best thing and the very same End more fully and perfectly attained this is designed by Repentance As Health is the design of taking Physick and to be well and sound of using Remedies and Medicines and those who are always healthfull and always sound and always well are in a much better condition than those who stand in need of a Cure tho' it be never so certain and infallible 2. I speak this all the while of Repentance from great and wilfull sins from a habit of them in our lives or at least a voluntary practice of them at some time or other and this Repentance I hope there are many that need not who were never ill persons all their lives nor ever guilty of any such one great and mortal sin as should put them into an ill and damnable state and exclude them out of Heaven had they died I speak not now of the ill state of all mankind by the fall or by our original Corruption and Depravation for that is took off by Christ the second Adam and we are put into a good state by the Gospel and by our Baptism so that no Man is in any danger of Damnation but upon his committing some wilfull and known sins such as the Scripture declares are damnable and exclude from Heaven He therefore that has been free from those tho' not free from all sins which no man is or can be all his life no not in his best state but some Infirmity some Imperfection some sin of Frailty or Ignorance or Surprize will beset him He I say that has lived free from all wilfull known sins and not allowed himself in any voluntary breach of God's Laws tho' he has not kept them so perfectly and exactly as he ought to do but has always had a regard to Religion and his Duty and never violated them in any great instance he was always a Child of God and never forfeited that Title he was never a Prodigal and run away from his Father's house nor wasted his Substance in Riotous living but like the dutifull and elder Son always served his Father neither at any time transgress'd his Commandments He never wandered out of the paths of Vertue nor never let his steps take hold of death he never defil'd his Virgin Innocence nor sullied
and blemish'd his Baptismal Purity nor fell into nor wallowed in any great sin and so needeth not to be washed and cleansed and purisied as a sinner in a higher sense needeth and this is the Happy the Blessed Person whom I prefer to the best Penitent and the truest Convert as the Parable here does 3. This shows the good of early Obedience and the great Happiness and Advantage of a Vertuous and Religious Education and the great Obligation there is for Parents to take care of this and the great thankfullness which those owe to God and their Parents who have had the benefit of it for nothing makes Virtue and Religion so easie or so acceptable to us as to have them taught and instill'd into us in our tender yearâ— when like soft Wax we are capable of any impressions and yet grow hard and retain them afterwards When the Seeds of Virtue are early Planted in our hearts before Vitious Habits or Inclinations are grown up in them and a sense of Religion takes the first possession of us and anticipates and prevents the power of our own Lusts or of evil Examples then Virtue becomes natural to us and Custom makes it both very easie to be practis'd and hard to be overcome for let the Habit and Custom be equal and I doubt not but there is as much difficulty for a Vertuous Person to become Vitious as for a Vitious Person to be made Vertuous It must be with great violence and reluctancy that such an one is brought to commit a wilfull Sin as well as the other to forsake it and therefore Scripture represents both the one and the other as if they were morally impossible As they who are accustomed to do Evil can as hardly learn to do Good as the Aethiopian can change his Skin or the Leopard his Spots so he that is born of God cannot Sin 1 John 3.9 I doubt not therefore but most of the good men that are or ever were in the World are such as have been Vertuously and Religiously Educated and brought up and but few of those in proportion who have been otherwise have been reclaim'd and brought off from the Lewdness and Debauchery they contracted when they were young T is a very hard and difficult thing to make a bad Man a good one the hardest thing in the World what the powerfull Operation of God's Grace is necessary to and what it often cannot effect thro' the stubbornness of the Will and indisposition of the Subject hence those complaints and expostulations I would have healed them but they would not be healed Jerem. 51.9 Turn ye turn ye why will ye die Oh that my people would have hearkned unto me and of Sinners resisting grieving and quenching the Holy Ghost and that God's Spirit shall not always strive with them and the like which shows the strength and power of ill habits and how hard 't is even by all means to get rid of them and how much happier it is to be engaged in an early Obedience and determined by a Vertuous Education than to be afterwards struggling with them 4. This prevents the common and dangerous mistakes about Repentance whereby Men make it a reserve to themselves to excuse them from a Religious and Vertuous and Holy life and think that by means of that they shall avoid all the mischief of their sins at last and be as safe and as secure of Heaven and their eternal Salvation tho' they live never so loosely and carelesly as if their whole lives had been spent in a course of Vertue and Religion 'T is but Repenting before they die and that as little before as they can if they can nick it right and are not cut off suddenly and unexpectedly which is but an accident that happens only to few and the great work and business is done by a true Sorrow and some sincere Resolutions and an Instantaneous change of mind as well as by the most intire Vertue and constant Obedience of a Man's whole life If so most Men's Sins and Lusts will perswade 'em to indulge and gratify 'em the greatest part of their lives if they cannot wholly bring 'em off from a sense and belief of Religion they will thus corrupt Religion and make it thereby comply with them and by these false notions of Repentance raise hopes to themselves of escaping all the mischief of their Sins and their ill lives and saving themselves by virtue of this Repentance at the last without leading a good life which they will therefore be glad to excuse themselves from as not absolutely necessary and so wholly trust and depend and venture upon the other way Now this is putting a trick upon God and Religion and being too hard for 'em upon their own Terms as they think tho' it is indeed putting a trick upon themselves and miserably deluding themselves into destruction by thus abusing this privilege of Repentance and making this Grant and Concession of the Gospel to destroy the Gospel it self and all the design of it which was to make men live well and bring them off from their Sins and not at all encourage them in 'em whereas by thus perverting the Grace of the Gospel and by wrong notions and wretched mistakes about Repentance the Obligations to actual Holiness and Obedienâ—â— are taken off and a Man may secure Heaven and his own Salvation without those by another and much shorter and easier way which is by Repentance at the last which shall be as safe to our selves and as acceptable to God and as well rewarded by him as the other Now I know but one way of saving a Man's Soul and going to Heaven and that is by a good life and by actual Holiness and Obedience Repentance is the bringing a sinner to these and if he do not do this tho' the Sorrow be never so great it is not true Repentance nor will be effectual to his Salvation 't is the Obedience and Holiness that he performs after his Disobedience and Wickedness which constitutes and compleats his Repentance and entitles him to the Divine favour and acceptance and to the rewards of Heaven and another World and the greater and perfecter and more entire this Obedience hath been the more it will be accepted and the more rewarded by a Righteous and Just God who will be Mercifull to Sinners when they Repent and turn to their Duty and Obedience and will accept and reward their broken and imperfect Obedience but not in so high a degree as the constant and unbroken and early and entire Obedience of Vertuous and Good men all their lives Lastly this Notion of an early Virtue and constant Obedience being prefertable to the truest Repentance stands upon the plainest principles of Religion and secures those evident Doctrines upon which all Practical Religion and the obligations of it are built such as these that God will reward every one at the last day according to their works and therefore in proportion to them and
and to all the Actions of this life we cannot think there is then an end of our being hardly any of mankind ever thought so our own thoughts tell us otherwise and Revelation assures us to the contrary and we have as much Evidence as we can have till we come thither as is consistent with Faith and comes not up to Sense We cannot then but be very sollicitous what shall become of our naked Souls when they are stript of these fleshly Bodies and what condition they shall be in in the other world We know in general how different the state is there there are Joys unspeakable on the one hand and Torments intolerable on the other and according as we believe the greatness and reality of both those so must we be concerned about this question How we shall be saved That is how we shall obtain the one and avoid the other We are very carefull here to make a short life that we know will quickly be at an end as Comfortable and Happy as we can We toil and drudge and contrive all we can to acquire the few good things that belong to it and to keep off those evils that are uneasie to us and yet when we have done all we can never hope to be perfectly Happy here and our utmost attainment can be only this that we be but less miserable we rise early and go to bed late and eat the bread of carefullness rather than suffer want and poverty and we are at infinite pains and trouble to gain an Estate that we must quickly leave and whilst we have it we are not more happy perhaps less content than we were before we are very carefull to keep up our crazy Bodies in good repair tho' we know they must quickly decay and fall into the dust A Disease alarms us and we are concerned at the warning of death and are willing to endure almost any thing to prevent it that its a Suffering a greater Martyrdom for this life than ever Christian did for another but how much greater reason have we to be concerned for our future state that life is never to have any end and so we shou'd be more carefull about it it 's to continue to Eternity and what it once is it 's to be ever the same if it be happy it 's so unalterably without danger of changing and if it be miserable it 's irreversibly so without any hopes of relief Oh wonderfull state how is this life a shadow a dream a vapour a bubble a vanishing Nothing in respect of the other it deserves not a thought nor is it worth a thousandth part of that care the other is how foolish are we then to labour so much for a moment of our being and not be more concerned for an endless duration of it But the greatness of the thing is as considerable as the continuance the things we are saved from are the greatest and terriblest evils we can possibly suffer the utmost torments of Mind and Body despair and horror and a dreadfull sense of Divine Anger and Vengeance and all the terrible apprehensions that guilt within and punishment without can bring upon a Soul that can have nothing else to fly to and that must suffer greater torment day and night without intermission than we can have now any conception of Fire and Brimstone and Chains of darkness and a never dying worm are but lesser representations of the unspeakable misery in the other World and who is it that dreads a nights pain under a tormenting despair that knows the torments of a troubled mind or has but tasted the gall and bitterness of a Melancholick humour who would not be infinitely concern'd how he may be sav'd from what we mean by Hell and Damnation and what would not the hopes of Heaven when they are joyned with those fears make us farther do when the one is to fright us from the greatest evil and the most perfect misery and the other at the same time holds out and invites us to the greatest Happiness to endless Pleasures and Joy unspeakable Who that does not either secretly dis-believe or never consider of this would not think it the greatest Question in the World what shall I do to be saved And who would not do all he can and use all means that are in his power to this purpose Who would refuse any pains or labour to accomplish this great End Who would stick at any difficulty that he was able to overcome and surmount to gain this point this greatest point of his own Eternal Salvation Had God required us to have toiled all our lives in the most wearisom drudgery and to have spent all our days in the hardest slavery had he made Religion the greatest burden and uneasiness in the World in order to the attaining of this yet what Wise man would not have thought it worth his while to have endured it and gone through it Had he commanded us to deny every Appetite to have offered violence to every inclination to have stifl'd every natural desires and renounced all the Gratifications and Enjoyments of the Animal life had he obliged us to quit all the comforts of this World and to have retir'd into a barren Wilderness or a Melancholick Cloister and there have worn out our lives in the severest Exercises of Fasting and Mortification or to have made them one continued station one constant course of Penance and Devotion all this would have been much more tolerable than to have endured the far greater Evils and Miseries of another World tho but for a little time and for much less than half so long as this life and therefore a thousand times more so than to suffer a miserable Eternity What shall we think then of God's requiring no such hard things at our hands nothing but what is far less than any of those nothing that is extreamly hard or mighty difficult or very burdensome and uneasie to us nothing but what is truly comfortable and delightfull if we rightly understood it and what tends to our present Good Ease and Comfort Interest and Advantage even in this life as well as another God puts no such hard conditions upon us as those I mention'd but we may be saved hereafter and yet enjoy at present all the comforts and good things of this World that a Wise Man would desire Religion debars us of none of them so far as they are Innocent and Lawfull that is so far as they are not Evil and Mischievous to us and plainly Destructive both of our own good and the good of the World There is no natural good forbidden to us nor any inclination to be denied any farther than it is foolish and unreasonable and exceeds the bounds of Wisdom and Virtue nor has God restrained us from any thing but what like the forbidden fruit is poysonous as well as pleasant and it 's not the pleasantness but the poyson is the true reason why it is forbidden so that our
fear of God is the greatest and truest Wisdom in the World he is the Wisest man who is the most Vertuous and Religious and he is the greatest Fool who lives Vitiously and Irreligiously and without the fear of God the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom or the first and chief Wisdom and the Foundation of all other a good understanding have all they that do his Commands i. e. they are the truly wise Men who live Vertuously and Religiously and they Fools who live Vitiously and Wickedly Behold the fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from evil is Vnderstanding There is no greater blemish contempt or imputation upon any Man than that he is a Fool and that he acts as such in whatever he does for it supposes the utmost decay and depravation of his Nature the loss of his Reason and that he wants that which makes us to be Men and is the proper perfection of our Being which is Wisdom and Understanding It will therefore greatly recommend and be for the honour of Religion if that appears to be the greatest and only Wisdom and it will justly reproach and expose Vice and Wickedness if that be made out to be nothing else but folly in the highest degree which I shall therefore endeavour at this time 1. First then Religion proposes and attains and secures the greatest End the chief Good and utmost Happiness that we can desire or are capable of and this is the truest part of Wisdom whereas Vice has but low and mean Ends such as are below the excellency of our Nature and are so far from promoting our Happiness that they defeat and destroy it all beings indeed aim at their own Happiness and have a blind and general design to compass and attain it self-preservation is a principle lies at the root of our Beings and we cannot chuse open and bare-fac'd misery but Vice and Wickedness takes down the poyson that is a little Guilded over and swallows the fatal hook that is baited with an appearing pleasure or profit and Men are led away in the dark and deluded with a shadow till they are brought into the deepest misery Vice proposes either bodily and sensual pleasure or worldly gain or some such present End and Design to be its greatest Happiness but alas it often loses those and Vertue and Religion picks up what the other drops and le ts go and secures those by ends a thousand times better than Vice does whilst it looks yet further and still aims at greater ends and a more true and compleat Happiness than any of those can yield to it for what is the most gustfull and luscious sensuality of body to an unquiet and uneasie and disturbed Mind Is not that worm of Conscience that gnaws it within and is bred from the filth and putrefaction of its own sins a greater torment than all the pleasures of sense can make amends for And what could a Man hope for if by his wickedness he could gain the whole world which yet many have even lost by it if thereby he loses his Soul the peace and quiet of it here and its Eternal felicity hereafter All the ends we can aim at and all the objects we can wish and desire are very little and inconsiderable without Religion and such are all the things and enjoyments of this World but Religion has great and noble aims and designs to make our Minds as well as our Bodies pleased and easie and to give a pleasure and satisfaction infinitely above the highest bodily delights which the Brutes are capable of as well as we to perfect and improve and fit our Souls for the greatest pleasure and happiness here and for that which is endless and unspeakable hereafter and to see this more particularly let 's consider 2. Secondly that all Ends and Designs but those of Religion are consined only to this World whereas those of Religion reach beyond this to a never ending Eternity how little and short and narrow are all the poor designs we can have here when in the compass of a few years they all cease and perish and come to an end when but a small time hence they shall be as useless and insignificant as if we had never been or ne'er had any of them Death which we all expect and which will certainly come in a little time whether we expect it of no puts a speedy end and conclusion to all other projects and designs but those of Virtue and Religion it covers all worldly Pomp and Grandeur with a cloud of night and darkness and draws a sable mantle over all it's glistering and shining vanity its honours lie here buried in the dust it's riches take leave of it at the Grave and all its bodily pleasures are exchanged for stench and noy fomness and its greatest strength and beauty is turned into weakness and gastliness This mortifying consideration should one would think make this World and every thing in it be very contemptible and all ends and designs but those of Virtue and Religion which teach beyond this World to be very poor and little and inconfiderable for like a Dream they are all quickly past and gone and when we awake into another World into a better and more substantial life all these images and shadows and fancies of happiness will then vanish and disappear and we shall be no more affected with them than with a last nights dream or the past visions of slumber and imagination but then Religion and Vertue will stand us in stead then they and a good Conscience will stick by us and attend and bear us Company into the other World and there we shall meet with those Ends and Designs which Religion has proposed to us and our greatest hopes and wishes shall be turned into greater fruition and enjoyment then a long Eternity shall reward and recompense our short Labours here and we shall never lose or be depriv'd of that great End and compleat Happiness which Religion recommended and directed us to Vice with all its delights is but for a very little time and the pleasures of sin are enjoy'd but for a Season Heb. 11.25 Men not only lose those and be for ever depriv'd of the End it aimed at but shall receive its sad and miserable portion laid up for it and be eternally tormented with unexpressible misery And what extream Folly will it then be found to have pursued no other End nor aimed at no other Happiness but that of this World which is so soon gone and at an end and for the sake of that to have exposed it self to a misery that shall never have end to have preferr'd a present moment before an endless Eternity and to gain some poor and little Ends here which yet are often lost rather than attain'd by Mens Vices to lose Heaven and everlasting Happiness 3. Religion and Virtue secure the Comfort and Happiness of this life as well as of another much better than Vice
weakness of mind The first is heedlesness rashness and inconsideration the other is infidelity and ignorance or inapprehensiveness of the truth of things All Irreligion is owing to these two Causes for either Men do not mind and consider as they ought to do those principles of Religion which they own and believe as that there is a Heaven and a Hell and an Eternal state of Bliss and Misery after this Life so as to let these have that full force and influence which they ought to have upon their minds or else they do not really believe and apprehend those to be true which are both high degrees of Folly and proceed from a great defect of Understanding and want of Wisdom As to the first of these what can be a grosser folly than to act contrary to those principles which we own and allow to believe that there is a God and that the Soul is immortal and yet to live as if there were no God and as if there were no other Life but this This is certainly the most desperate folly and madness to run upon the greatest danger that we see evidently before us and to leap into Hell with our eyes open when Men do really believe they shall be damn'd for a wicked and ill life and yet still continue in their sins 'T is folly one would think even to the height of distraction to live thus contrary to their belief and let their principles and their actions thus disagree and to condemn themselves in their acting contrary to their own knowledge belief and understanding in a matter which is of so great moment and concern as they must acknowledge this to be Of the two the other one would think were more excusable who do not believe these things tho' that is great ignorance and folly for 't is dis-believing that which all mankind have in all Ages believed in some degree or other and which we have as much reason to believe as we can have if the thing were never so true and certain and which it is impossible we should ever know or have any reason to believe to be false and which if it were only doubtfull and but meerly probable or indeed possible yet a wise Man would not run a great hazard or venture upon it but would take care to save and secure himself against the worst and utmost possibilities that might happen I shall not now consider the great weakness and folly of infidelity against the clearest reason and evidence and the utmost demonstration the thing is capable of and requiring more than a thing of that nature can have nor how Religion is Wisdom as being established upon the greatest foundations of truth and certainty 'T is the other folly that of inconsideration by which most men perish by not attending to the power and force of those truths which they do believe but rashly and inconsiderately following the career of their Lusts and violence of their Inclinations against the reason and belief of their Minds and the conviction of their Judgment and Understanding for could any Man that seriously consider'd and believ'd an everlasting state of rewards and punishments and let his mind duly attend and be affected with those considerations which he really believes to be true could he be wicked without the greatest folly and madness and can it appear to be any other than the most foolish and unreasonable thing in the World to believe all those great and important things which Religion teaches us and yet to live as if we believed none of them This is such unaccountable folly as wants a name and can have nothing to palliate or excuse it Indeed a wicked life is the greatest folly in the World and appears to all to be so upon reflection and a little serious consideration no body but repents of it afterwards and is sorry for it one time or other tho' perhaps it be too late and when he cannot retrieve or amend it unless he be stupified and hardned and have lost the use of his Judgment and Understanding which is a plain owning it to be Folly and Unadvisedness even upon Tryal and Experience and a wishing they had done better and that they had been much wiser No Man Repents of his having done Vertuously and lived Religiously but is pleased and satisfied in himself upon his reflecting upon it which shows that he acted wisely and prudently but the direfull agonies and sad reflections and horrors and disquiets that a Man feels in his mind upon his having liv'd wickedly shows the height of his folly and how he is forc'd to condemn himself for it and to bewail and lament his extream weakness and madness and this is truly Hell when he must do so to all Eternity then I am sure it will appear whatever it does now that Vice and Wickedness is the greatest folly and that Vertue and Religion are the true and only Wisdom and that what the Psalmist says is true The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom The Eighth Sermon ROM XII 21. Be not overcome of Evil but overcome Evil with Good IT is a question with some whether Christ have added any thing to the law of nature or requir'd any higher and more perfect Vertues than are founded in that As for the Law of Moses he has taken away the Ritual and Ceremonial part of it and as to the Moral he has cleared it from the false glosses and corruptions and errors of the Scribes and Pharisees who had expounded it into a meaning contrary to the true sense and intention of the Law for that to be sure coming from God cou'd have nothing immoral in it and therefore whatever corrections were made by our Saviour were only of the perverse and corrupt interpretations of others and not of the Law it self But whether he has not added any new and more perfect Laws both to the Law of Moses and that of Nature and required higher instances of Vertue of us Christians than of the rest of mankind is a great question On the one side it seems more for the honour of Christ and his Religion in which there are some nobler precepts that excell any that are to be met with in any other Moralist as against Lust and Revenge for loving Enemies and not retaliating injuries and the like On the other side if Christ has added any new Laws not founded in nature they must be meerly positive and alterable and not have any natural or intrinsick good in them but be owing to the mere Arbitrary will of God and not to the original settlement and constitution of things for if they have a foundation either in the nature of God or the nature of things they cannot be new and so added to those of nature but I think this Controversie may be thus compounded and resolved that those Laws though they were founded in nature and had a natural and intrinsick and eternal Goodness in them as all moral Vertues have yet
another life to succeed this wherein we shall receive as we have behaved our selves here That the Soul when it is releas'd from the Body and puts on a thinner and a lighter Vehicle passes to the vast Regions of Eternity and there has a very different life from what it had here when naked of all earthy matter and not wanting any of the Conveniencies of its mortal state its thoughts are more vigorous and sprightly and it understands more clearly and wills more freely and acts more nimbly and expeditely and unrestrainedly He could tell us how it feels it self when it is first loosed from the Body and strip'd naked of its fleshly Cloathing whither it will betake it self next and to what place it is convey'd what reception it has at its first coming into the other World and how it is provided for when like a stranger it arrives at that unknown place He would acquaint us how it was brought before the bar of God and a Divine Judgment immediately pass'd upon it and so was Sentenc'd to its sinal state and irreversible doom according to what it had done in the flesh whether it were good or evil and therefore in the 2. Second place he would acquaint us with the Happy and Blessed state of good Souls there If he were Lazarus as was desired here by the rich man one that lay in Abraham's Bosom and tasted of the Joys and Pleasures that are at God's right hand what a ravishing account would he give us of those things which no Eye upon Earth hath seen nor Ear heard neither hath it enter'd into the heart of any Man who hath not enjoy'd 'em to concieve what they are He that had been an Inhabitant of the new Jerusalem the Glorious City and Beautifull Palace of the great God what a Description would he give of all the Glories of it of all the Riches and Heavenly Treasures that are there laid up of all the Crowns that are worn by every Citizen there of all the mansions that are there for every Soul of all that blest Society of Angels and glorisied Spirits of all the Orders of Cherubims and Seraphims and all the Armies of Martyrs of the Glorious Throne of the Heavenly King and of the Lamb that sits upon it of the lustre and brightness that shines in every place and the Joy and Gladness that dances in every heart and sparkles in every eye and appears in every face of the great Complacency and Delight that they have in one another and the most inflamed Love and Charity with which they meet their fellow Saints how they are infinitely Happy in themselves and double all their Happiness by the sweet relish and tast they have of that of others as well as their own how they live all in Raptures and Extasies of Joy and have their Souls overflowed with those Rivers of Pleasure that are at God's right hand and for ever stream from that Spring and Fountain of all good In a word that they enjoy such Pleasures and Delights that he which selt 'em one moment would be willing to endure all the Racks and the Tortures of the cruelest Persecutors that he might but once tast of 'em again That those short afflictions are not worthy to be compared with them that the greatest Pleasures and Delights in this World are but saint and empty shadows and poor resemblances of 'em and that he long to be enjoying 'em again and that he is impatient to be so long absent from ' em 3. A Messenger from the dead would testisie also of the Misery and grievous Torments of Men wicked and sinfull Lazarus that had seen the slames of Hell tho' asar off or Dives that had felt and been in the midst of them would give a Tragical description of that place of horrors he would tell us what a Dismal and Disconsolate place is that dark Prison where they are shut up with hellish Fiends and accursed Spirits who affright and insult over the wretched Soul how they are there bound hand and foot with chains of darkness not able to move any way for the least ease nor call to any Friend to pity or comfort 'em how they are always sinking into a dark and bottomless Pit and lie for ever scalding in a Furnace of fire rowling and scorching in a Lake of burning Brunstone where the raging flames with unexpressible pain enter the tender parts and pierce through the Soul with their keenness and sharpness how in the extremity of their Torments the miserable wretches cry out and roar and gnaw their tongues for pain and blaspheme the God of Heaven because of their pains Revel 16.10 11. How with Rage and Fury against themselves cursing their own folly and madness and swallow'd up with bitter despair the remembrance of their own Guilt stings their enraged Conscience and the never dying Worm gnaws and eats at their very hearts and the anger of an Almighty and Incens'd God lies always heavy upon 'em and his wrath presses 'em fore and fills their Souls with all the dreadfull Ideas of sear and despondency and in the midst of all this anguish there is one thing more terrible than all this than all they feel and that is the Apprehension that it shall last for ever that there shall be no end of those Torments that they are not able to bear for one day This this is the bitterest and most sad circumstance that confounds the wretched tormented Soul and sharpens every pain it feels and fills it with unexpressible Horror and Despair that it must endure all this to insinite Ages to a boundless and never ending Eternity and that after it has lain many thousand years in that place of Torments it will still have as many to go through as it had at first Oh sad and dreadfull state how grievous and intolerable does it appear to us and how would one that had been in it represent it How if he had but as much Charity as Dives would he warn us not to come into that place of Torments how unwilling would he be to go back to it how loth to end his message and how desirous to give us an Eternal account of them rather than endure ' em And now would a wicked Man be able to resist this message could he stand out against such Arguments as these are would not these cool the heat of his Lusts and damp all the Jollity of his most tempting Vices Would not this spoil all their Charms and sully all their enticing Peauty and Gayety Would not such a Ghostly Messenger appearing before him make his blood chill and his joynts tremble and the heart of the most hardy sinner be afraid at the sight of him when he brought the terrible news to his brethren in wickedness from one with whom they had often laugh'd at Religion and the stories of Hell and another World with whom they had been often merry and that with those very things that they now hear the
deportment so does the superstitious make shows and appearances of courtship to Heaven but he is out in all of them and does not what is proper what is really obliging and acceptable to it The Devil not being able to destroy the religious sense that is in our minds not being able to root out that which Nature has planted in every man's breast a sense of a God and a Divine Being above us he endeavours to spoil and corrupt that as much as he can and to sow such cockle and tares among the good and natural seed of religion as may quite choke it and make it unfruitfull as may alter its kind and make it produce such fruit as is not true and genuine but quite of another nature as looks like religion and like the Apples of Sodom seem more fair outwardly but is another thing within because he cannot hinder men from being Religious but there is something within themselves will make them so in spite of all his attempts and designs to the contrary therefore he will make 'em superstitious because he cannot stop the religious instinct and inclination of their minds he will determine and set it wrong because he cannot dry up that natural spring of Religion that rises up in every ones breast he will poyson and corrupt it and because Religion is so deeply and strongly rooted in human nature that it can never be wholly pluck'd up by him therefore he will graft upon it such false and superstitious principles as shall quite alter it's nature and tho' they are fed and nourish'd by a religious sense at the bottom yet this vine shall bring forth Thorns and this Fig-tree Thistles and from this sweet Fountain shall come forth Salt and bitter Waters by a superstitious mixture Religion shall be changed and perverted both in its nature and its effects This is the saddest mischief to true Religion that it should be thus made to destroy it self that its force and power should be turned upon its self and it should be consumed like some Animals by what grows out of it self 'T is thus the Devil most successfully countermines God and destroys Religion by turning it into superstition which how it is done and by what means effected I shall endeavour to show you in three prrticulars 1. By making Men vitious and wicked for tho' superstition may often grow up in weak and silly minds that may be innocent and far from being guilty of very great and notorious vices yet I believe the first and most general cause of superstition in the World is Vice and Wickedness the Devil has first drawn Men to that and then has led them into all manner of errors and falshoods he has first debauch'd their morals and then their understandings he has first wrought upon their Wills and Affections by abominable Lusts and Vices and then he has quickly corrupted their Judgments and led 'em into all manner of mistakes in Religion The superstition of the Heathen World arose I doubt not from that horrible corruption of manners that was among them they would never have set up such a Religion as they did made up of nothing almost but obscenity and filthiness cruelty and blood apishness and folly had not they been as the Apostle represents the Heathen World Rom. 1. Vain in their imaginations and fill'd with all manner of unrighteousness implacable and unmercifull in their own tempers and given up to the most beastly Lusts and unnatural Lewdnesses these Vices in themselves naturally lead them to such a false Religion and such superstitious abominations as they were guilty of But as their manners decay'd so did the true Religion and the right worship of God and as vice got ground so did superstition and they always grew up and encreased and like Hippocrates his Twins lived and died together What hidden cause thus linked them together and how they came to be such inseparable Companions may seem strange when superstition owns and acknowledges a God has a great sense of him upon the mind but if we consider that this sense of a God when it has not had such a due effect as it ought upon it so as to preserve it vertuous and Innocent but Lust and Wickedness and the Temptations of the Devil have overcome it this sense of its own Wickedness joyned with the sense of a God does very naturally and easily bring it to superstition If it had no sense of a God nor no belief of such a being at all if it could get rid of that which it never can then indeed there would be no ground of superstition and this way the Atheist would free himself from all superstitious fears or if it were not vicious and so not sensible of its own horrid guilt and wickedness and its obnoxiousness to this God above neither then would it be superstitious but when it is thus sensible of a great and just God which is the avenger of such crimes as it knows it has been highly guilty of this is the first thing that brings it to superstition because in the 2. Second place this causes a dreadfull fear and terrible apprehension of God upon it it s own guilt scares and affrights it and draws terrible Ideas and Images of God upon its mind so that it looks upon him only as a Malefactor does upon his severe Judge his Jailor or his Executioner it sees nothing but frowns in his face and anger in his eyes and Thunder and Lightning in his hand and fancies all the Instrumenes of Torture and Punishment ready to be applied to it And in such a case as this is what would it not do to pacifie and appease this Deity that it thus dreads what a dreadfull fright and passion must it be in when it can think of nothing that will do it how will it be trying every thing it can think of Come before his altars and bring thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oyl if it were rich enough and give its first born for its transgression and part with the fruit of its own body for the sin of its soul Micah 6.7 and shed its own blood for to make some expiation for its guilt Nothing is so mean and servile nothing so cruel and bloody so shamefull and scandalous but a Soul overwhelmed with a superstitious fear will be attempting and trying be it never so unagreeable to the Divine Nature and never so unfit and unsuitable to please him there is just ground of being afraid of God when we are sensible of our guilt and 't is not this is superstition but when this fear puts Men upon foolish and undue and abominable ways to appease him and gives us such a dreadfull Idea and Apprehension of him as quite excludes all the thoughts of his Goodness and Mercy and puts the mind only into an excessive fright and fit of horror then it is so I cannot think that ever mankind would have formed such a conception of God had not their
superstition the design of those is to supersede honest Vertue and inward Goodness and by some other ways to think to purchase the Divine Favour and the Happiness of Heaven 'T is very hard and difficult to men to be inwardly good and exactly vertuous to drive out every known sin and live in the practice of every duty which is the plain and the honest path-way to Heaven and therefore superstition would find out other by-roads and easier passages and would have Religion lie in more easie and outward performances and would relieve it self against that strait and narrow way which the Gospel directs us to and would have it suffice to be sent to Heaven by an Absolution or an Indulgence Thus by a Pass as it were by the Priest or Pope to the other World by making a short Confession and being a little contrite and absolved and anointed on the Death-Bed the work is quickly done and as well he thinks as if the Man had lived a Saint or died a Martyr or if he had been so Religious in his life time as to tell over his Beads every day and carry a Crucifix always about him and perform the Pennance of his Confessor and gone a few Pilgrimages to a few Saints then he has done such works as are very meritorious tho' his Saviour never Commanded one of them and he must be thought to be very Religious tho' 't is such a Religion as the Gospel is a perfect stranger to But Superstition is for placing Religion in some other things than the Gospel does in some inventions of its own in some little and easie and trifling performances in some of the externals and shadows of Religion in a strict observance of some lesser duties and a zealous concern for inconsiderable matters in being over forward for the little adjuncts and appendages of Religion but very negligent of that which is the true life and substance of it and in vainly believing to please God by some other things than by a righteous and good mind and the practice of universal Holiness Thus did the Jews think that often washing their Hands would make their Souls clean that to observe the lesser duties of the Law and the Rites and Traditions of their Elders was the way to render them extraordinary Holy and Religious though they foully neglected the weightier duties of Judgment Mercy and Truth Superstition will often overdo in some parts of Religion and therefore puts on the face of greater sanctity and is a kind of excess in Religion but 't is at the bottom a great defect a want of true and inward goodness and it would supply that defect by other shows and appearances and a mighty zeal in little things it would compound as it were with Heaven and commute its sorry and worthless performances for actions of true and substantial goodness It always lays too much value upon the little things of Religion and does but little esteem and not heartily love Morality and inward Goodness and therefore the truest principle to free us from all superstitious follies and mistakes in Religion is this That nothing will please God but being truly and inwardly good that nothing will commend us to his favour but a Vertuous Mind and a Holy Life and the sincere practice of all the moral substantial duties of Religion and that without those all other little things in Religion will be vain and idle and insignificant which is the truest principle in the World and the best preservative against Superstition The Eleventh Sermon ACTS XXVI 8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead THe Resurrection of the dead is an Article of our Faith of that weight and importance that as it confirms and strengthens all natural Religion for if Mens bodies rise most undoubtedly there is a future State so it is the very Basis and Foundation of Christianity without which our Faith in Christ is as the Apostle says vain and ungrounded It seems not so necessary indeed for the truth of Religion in general to believe the Resurrection of the flesh or body since the Soul without that may be capable of Happiness or Misery in another state and the belief of this alone may be sufficient to the designs of Vertue and Religion But Christianity lays a very great stress upon it makes the Resurrection of the body as necessary and fundamental an Article upon some accounts as the immortality of the soul and this because of the Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour which as 't is the great demonstration of the truth of our Religion so it is an Argument of the Resurrection of all other Humane Bodies for if he be risen again with the same Body with which he lived and with that is gone into the Heavens it 's fit we should follow him thither with our bodies too with our whole Humane Nature which he was pleased not only to assume upon Earth but to carry up to be an Inhabitant of the mansions above if he our head be raised we his Members must be raised with him he the first fruits from the dead has by his Resurrection Consecrated our Bodies to Life and Immortality It would be very strange if he should carry his Humane Body into Heaven were there no others of the same nature to follow him so that as the Apostle argues 1 Cor. 15.13 If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen It does therefore highly concern us to maintain and defend this main post and strongest hold of our Religion by which our Christianity must either stand or fall and that the more because Infidelity and Irreligion is most apt to be making its attempts and assaults upon it in this place the weakest as is supposed which belongs to it and to represent this article above all others as an impossible and incredible thing There were found not only among the Athenians some of the Sect of Epicurus probably who when they heard of the Resurrection mocked at it Acts 17.32 and Pliny I remember reckons it among one of the things that exceed the power of God revocare defunctos but even amongst the Jews there were some known to St. Paul who thought it a thing unreasonable and unfit to be believed to whom he directs himself in this his defence of Christianity the Sadduces were a numerous and prevailing Sect among them who say there is no Resurrection neither Angel nor Spirit Acts 23.8 There are too many of their mind in our days who cannot believe or conceive any spiritual or immaterial substances and who cannot think that a body after it has been dead and lain rotting so many hundred or thousand years and been dispersed into ten thousand atoms and scattered into as many different places and had a thousand other bodies made out of it that this should be brought together again and rise the same body it was before Against these modern Sadduces and Unbelievers these pretenders to Reason
Resurrection Why should it be thought a thing incredible with us and especially with any curious searcher of Nature that God should raise the dead 2. If we take in the almighty Power and Wisdom of God this will remove all the difficulty and incredibility that seems to be in the thing So that the very first principle of Religion will make all the difficulty of the Resurrection vanish the considering that there is an infinite Being who has power sufficient to do every thing that implies not a contradiction and is not in the nature of the thing utterly impossible or contrary to some standing and fundamental principle of truth and certainty nor does any way reflect upon his other perfections of Wisdom Justice and Goodness this will make the whole thing very easie to us for how easie will it be to him who put every part of matter into that regular order that constitutes the Heavens above and earth below and all Plants and Animals that are upon it he who founded the Earth by his power and stretched out the Heavens by his understanding as the Scripture speaks He who telleth the number of the Stars and calleth them all by their names as the Psalmist expresses it Ps 147.4 He who made and moved and knows and permeates every part of matter that is in the vast Creation and ranks and orders it in its due place how cannot he put and bring together all the scattered parts of our dead bodies He from whom our substance was not hid when we were made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the Earth Psam 139.15 whose Eyes did see our substance yet being unperfect and in whose Book were all our members written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them v. 16. how cannot he also as easily know and rejoin all the parts and members of our corrupted bodies He by whom the very hairs of our heads are numbred how easie will it be for him to know the body of every man and every part and Member of that body he who gives life to every little Creature and to those innumerable Animals that are in the World who preserves so many thousand Essences by a continual influx derived from himself and has millions of Angels and other Souls who live and move and have their several beings in him In a word he who made and preserves all things by a word of his mouth and needs nothing but the mere willing of a thing to make it how great is this our Lord and of great power his understanding is insinite Psal 147.5 and he can do any thing that implyes not a contradiction nor is contrary to the reason and nature of things nor contrary to his own other perfections of Wisdom Justice and Goodness as I shall show briefly the Resurrection is not 1. Then there is no incapacity in the subject nor no contradiction in the nature of the thing to make the Resurrection incredible A dead body is no more uncapable of life than a body at rest is of motion or than a torch put out is of being kindled again and the soul may as well be united to it afterwards as is was at first It may be brought into it when raised from the Grave by the same Laws of the Universe or the same vital Congruity by which it came into it when it was first formed and every soul may as well be directed to its own body then as it was before the greatest difficulty in the subject is this That the parts of the body are so scattered and divided in several places and made the parts perhaps of other bodies that its hard to conceive how they should all come together and be united to their proper bodies but tho' they are scattered they are not lost every Atom be it never so small is still to be found in the vast mass of matter and whatever alterations it may have past thro' yet has its being and subsistence some where in the World and so may with Power and Wisdom be put together again like the many little pins and small pieces of a great Machine tho' they are all taken to pieces and misplaced yet they may all be set together again by a skilfull hand Every part of matter is pervaded and fill'd with a spirit that governs all its motions and knows the minutest particles of it and can range and order them as it pleaseth and there is nothing hid from the power thereof There is not the least appearance of a contradiction for a thing that was destroyed or dispersed to become the same it was before it seems nothing so hard as for a thing to be that was not before So that the Resurrection cannot be thought by any so incredible as the Creation and he that is but a Theist and owns natural Religion cannot with reason stick or boggle at this Article of Revelation and he that believes an Almighty Power could make all things out of nothing need not doubt his power to make a thing what it was before 2. Neither is the Resurrection contrary to any certain principle of truth which the God of truth has established in the nature and reason of things if it were it could be no object of Divine power for God's power must not destroy the truth of things there are certain principles of truth and knowledge which must be kept inviolable or else we run into boundless Scepticism and can never know any thing to be true or false and therefore we must not call in the Almighty power to destroy those as the Papists do in Transubstantiation which must be as certainly false as we can know any thing to be certainly true so that neither infallibility can uphold it nor infinite power effect it without destroying those certain principles by which we can know any thing to be true by destroying the nature and properties of a body by making the whole no greater than a part by taking away all evidence of sense about its proper objects and if we remove those we have no way left to know whether any thing be true or false But the Resurrection is no way liable to any such absurdities nor is it in the least contrary to any certain and natural principles of truth for then it would be not only incredible but absolutely false and impossible to be true no Article of Christian Faith is or can be so but as we say tho' it be above our reason yet is not against it The blessed Trinity in Unity tho' it be of another nature of an infinite and incomprehensible being which may communicate it self in such a manner as we know not yet however it be too big for our Conception is not contradictory to any thing we certainly know to be true and tho' it be an Idea by it self it destroys none of those Idea's we have of other things 3. That the Resurrection is no way inconsistent with any of the Divine
living as they call it too fast that is running on in the full Career of wickedness and galloping as hard as they can to Hell How do they I say Not live out half their days and they are sometimes so hasty to die that their bodies are often rotted before they come into their Graves and their sins in some measure prevent death How have others stigmatized their names with their Vices and brought a lasting reproach and real infamy upon themselves and families where yet nothing has been so dear to them as titular Reputation and the false Image and Idol of Honour How have they madly Sacrificed their Souls and their Lives to redeem that which yet they have basely thrown away by a scandalous Life which has made them base and contemptible to all wise Men Thus how plain is it that sin besides the vast and amazing miseries of another World brings most of the evils of this upon us A blot and reproach to our credit and good names sickness and diseases to our bodies and often beggery to our selves and families and above all spoils and corrupts the Mind takes away the Peace and Improvement of it fills it with inward discomposure and uneasiness and often so impairs a Mans reason and understanding as to leave the old and wretched sinner only the shape of a Man with the nature and qualities of a Beast Now all these a blinded sinner either sees not or considers not either quite forgets or does not at all mind in the hot pursuit of his Lusts and the hurry and tumult of his unruly Appetites he feels not the Wounds that are given him in his hot blood tho' when he grows cool a little he will be very sensible of them his thoughts are wholly taken up with the sancied good and pleasure and he looks to nothing but that nor considers the much greater evils and mischiefs of them so he pursues his Game and follows the Chase and sees not the pit or the precipice just before him 'till he is faln into it he leaps into certain danger without looking into it and without any fear or foresight runs upon Death and Destruction as the horse rushes into the battle as Scripture represents it Jer. 8.6 An inward heat and ardor spurs him on and he is wholly driven by other principles than those of his reasonable nature and the serious thoughts and considerations of things or observing the consequences of his own Actions And thus sin deceives him in the next place 3. By taking off his Mind from considering and examining things or reflecting upon his own Actions or using his own Thoughts it makes him live only by the suggestions of sense and the propensities of his animal nature and lower inclinations without the Exercise or Government of his thoughts or reason Like brute beasts that have no understanding as the Scripture compares sinners Ps 32.9 His Passions and Lusts and irregular Appetites grow masterless and unruly and get an intire Power and Dominion over him and his reason has no check or controul over them his Vices keep him always warm and heated and never suffer him to cool or grow sober they ply him close with what shall more intoxicate and besot him and keep him from ever coming to himself so his mind is always dozed and he lives under a perpetual kind of drunkenness and loss of his reason his thoughts are always drowned in Hurry Business or Company Drink Noise or Diversion or scattered and dispersed in mad freaks and pranks of extravagance and with a sort of practical incoherent nonsense or else amused with Phantastick Whimsies and Romantick Conceits and imaginary Representations of things as they are drawn by Plays and Poets contrary to all sober thinking and the right knowledge of the nature of things as God has constituted them in the World Thus it is with our either dull or witty unthinking Debauchees who live a rambling careless thoughtless Life without any true principles or any serious consideration or reflection and examining of things who care as little as can be to think at all and therefore avoid themselves as much as may be and never love to be alone for nothing is so troublesome and uneasie to them as themselves and their own thoughts and therefore they keep from them all they can and would be quite without them if they could And upon this account we find them often declaiming against reason and thinking and extolling the condition of Beasts above Men which is only another way of commending themselves for at the same time they are endeavouring to be as equal and like to them as may be 4. To show the deceitfulness of sin we cannot but observe that Vertue is much the likelier way to attain most of the present goods of this World which sin aims at but generally loses and destroys Thus Sobriety Chastity and Temperance pick up that bodily pleasure which is lost and dropt by Vice and Debauchery when they are so hastily running after it the ambitious and covetous miss often their aims whilst others unexpectedly meet with what they are in vain seeking and generally most of the good things of this World are by Nature and Providence settled upon Vertue and lost by Vice the one is a Tree of Life as the Wiseman speaks Prov. 3.18 and even literally Health to our Navel and Marrow to the Bones while the other is a Disease and trouble to the Flesh and rottenness to the bones The one is a Crown of honour that circles the head of the Wise and Vertuous while the other is a foul stain and blemish to a mans Credit and good Name the one is Peace and Joy and Gladness to the mind the other is a worm to the Conscience a tormentor to the Soul and an inward Hell in a Man 's own breast Wisdom has in her right hand length of days and in her left hand riches and honour her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace as the Wiseman long ago observed Prov. 3.17 whereas most of the temptations to sin are Vain and Phantastick Cheating and Delusive and have only appearances but no real good in them like Zeuxis's Grapes they are only painted artificially but have no real sweetness they deceive the eye and the fancy at a distance but there is nothing of true pleasure and delight to be tasted in them but often a real bitterness instead of it like the vines of Sodom and Gomorrah Deut. 32.32 their grapes are grapes of gall their clusters are bitter their wine is the poyson of dragons and the cruel venom of Asps Men always find themselves deceived and disappointed in their vain expectations of what their sins will afford 'em and therefore always come off with repentance shame and remorse and can never answer it to themselves afterwards nor find any good account in the reckoning when they come to cast it up and ask themselves seriously the Apostle's question What fruit had ye in
it will do even by the help of Religion it self to be too hard for Heaven upon its own Terms and Concessions but God is not to be thus mocked or over-reached No Repentance will do but what brings forth the fruits of obedience and a good life nor is a sin so easily repented of after it is committed especially upon such presumptuous terms as may justly provoke God to give it up to an harden'd and impenitent heart and to that wretched state which sin by being continued in will bring it to Which is the next thing I am to consider 2. How Men are hardened by their sins or how sin hardens their minds afterwards and brings them to the most wretched and depraved state and temper And this I shall show 1. In the gross or in general 2. More particularly how and to what degrees it hardens them 3. Make some remarks and observations from the whole 1. How Sin hardens in general When a Man has given way to it in any great and willfull instances and it has made a breach upon his purposes and resolutions which were too weak to hold out against it it will enter with all its force and gain ground daily upon him and quickly conquer and overcome him if he do not repulse it immediately and drive it out by Repentance tho' he may a little struggle and rally against it especially at the first beginning when natural Conscience will strive a while with his carnal Lusts and Inclinations yet if in this conflict the Sin prevails and is too hard for the Spirit and he continues to commit it it will at last wholly master him and bring him into such Bondage and Vassallage that he shall lose the moral liberty and freedom of his mind and be such a slave to it as to be led Captive by it at its will so that in the same sense he both will not and cannot get rid of it for he has then lost the power of his mind and is brought under the perfect dominion of his Lusts and Vices so that tho' he sees the plainest mischief of them and wishes he could leave them and would do so if a faint wish and a mere velleity were sufficient yet he still lives in them to the plainest ruin both of his Body and Soul to his undoing both in this World and another and tho' he sees and seels the pernicious consequences and effects of them yet neither a decayed Body nor a disordered Mind nor a shattered Estate nor Conscience nor Credit nor his own Reason which condemns and reproaches him for them can ever prevail upon him to forsake and abandon them They have taken such strong hold of him and he is so much under their power that he cannot for all these strong arguments and considerations resist the next temptation or opportunity that invites to them His Lusts and sensual Inclinations and disorderly Appetites are grown so strong and his Reason and Religion so weak and unable to resist them that like a mighty Torrent they carry all before them and indeed he himself has broke down all the banks that should withstand them and he is carried down by the violent stream of his Lusts till it dryes up of it self and age and infirmity abate and sink it and his sins as we commonly say leave him and even then when he is dead to sin in some sense yet the Ghosts of his departed Vices still haunt him and the Phantoms or fancies the Spirits if I may so call them of his Lewdness and Debauchery still hover over the Grave and the Carkass as it were of an old sinner and will not quite depart from him This hardning of a sinner is gradual and comes not all at once upon him but by the power of Custom and the strength of Vitious Habits he is brought by time and degrees to this hardned state and by an unaccountable quality in sin it self whereby the mind is as it were petrified by it and brought to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Platonists often speak of such a deadness and stupidness of its faculties and its moral powers as we cannot well express Every sin hardens the mind a little and weakens the first tender sense of good and evil that is natural to it and the longer it continues in it it sensibly hardens it the more tho' by secret and insensible means as even Stones grow out of the Earth that was at first soft and fluid but by time and a saline and other qualities they grow hard and rocky A Sinner at first had great tenderness of mind and could hardly be brought to commit a willfull Sin 'till by Custom and many repeated Acts he grew more harden'd and embolden'd So that what he committed at first with reluctancy he commits afterwards with greediness the first conception and formation of Sin in his mind was by a small seed or principle and by an unaccountable growth and increase a wicked thought became at first an Inclination or rather a natural Inclination produced a Thought a Thought increased the Inclination that begot a Delight a Delight a Consent a Consent an Act an Act by degrees a Habit and that becomes stronger and stronger by time As in the growth of our bodies Anatomists tell us a Gelly becomes a Nerve a Fibre a Tendon a Muscle or a Bone by strange and imperceptible ways The Body of Sin which the Scripture speaks of is formed by custom and grows still more and more and has no fixt stature set to it but is harder to be put off the older it is and gets strength every day and renews it by age The Sin which at first might have been easily withstood and overcome and like a young Weed readily pluck'd up afterwards takes such deep root in a Man's mind that 't is the hardest thing in the World to remove it and to get rid of a long and confirmed habit that has been a great while growing upon us This hardning of the Mind by Sin I take to proceed from Custom which has an unaccountable force and power upon us and does as it were bend the Will that way and put so strong a byass upon the Thoughts and Inclinations of the Mind that it can hardly with all its natural Liberty and God's ordinary Grace get off of it and when the Will is thus obstinately bent to any Lust or Wickedness it affects and draws in the Understanding and corrupts the Judgment and the mind at the same time it is thus hardned by its Vices is blinded also by them and so the two great powers and faculties of the Soul are corrupted by it both at once for hardning respects properly the Will and blinding the Understanding and they always go together and are promiscuously mention'd the one for the other in Scripture Mens Lusts and Vices as they harden them and bring as it were a Callus upon the mind by long use and make it to be past
Now the Soul can never be so lost as to lose its Being or its Power of thinking Happy would it be for a great many if it could so lose it self and vanish into air or nothing but 't is the loss of its proper Life and Happiness of the right use of its noble Powers and Faculties and of those Operations and Enjoyments it was made for and suffering the Misery and Anguish which its own thoughts bring upon it This is the unvaluable loss of the Soul and a great part of its Hell as I shall show immediately Sin indeed brings the Mind to this lost and wretched condition by degrees it darkens and blinds the Mind and spoils its powers of rightly Judging and Understanding not in an instant but as darkness comes upon the Earth by gradual approaches 'T is hard perhaps to give a full Account how it does this but it employs the thoughts upon wrong and undue objects it immerses and sinks 'em in carnal Fancies and sensual Ideas it perverts and distorts the Judgment and gives it undue representations of things or it takes it off from thinking and considering at all by such means it brings it to this pass tho' it have eyes to see yet it sees not tho' it have Understanding that is the natural power of it yet it understands not Mat. 13.14 so tho' it have its power of willing yet it wills only evil and has no moral ability to will good from the strong prevalency of its own evil desires and affections This is losing the Soul and the right powers of it and making it like an absorpt Star lose its proper light center and motion tho' it be still a Star but fallen dark and wandring 3. And this I take in the third place to be the Scripture-notion of hardning when Men's sins bring 'em to this state and when God is said to harden them 't is not by any positive influx or poysonous infusion nor yet perhaps by withdrawing his ordinary Grace and the means of conversion from them this he did not from Pharaoh or the Jews or any other Sinners that we know of 'T is only Sin that hardens them and their own Lusts and Vices that blind them and when God is said to do it 't is generally by doing such things as are the occasion not the cause of it which are in themselves proper means of working quite other effects upon them not of hardning and blinding but rather of converting and convincing them Such were all the Miracles God wrought and all the Methods he used both with the Jews and with Pharaoh where he tried all ways to bring them off from their Obstinacy and Infidelity and continued so to do notwithstanding their abuse of them God strikes no Man spiritually blind nor takes away that light which is necessary for him to see by or that strength and assistance which is necessary to convert him 'T is the Clouds only darken the Earth and not the Sun 't is the interposal of the dark body of the one and not the withdrawing the beams of the other which properly brings night upon it I very much question whether there be any other judicial hardness and blindness especially in this Life than what Mens sins bring upon them their being left to the malignant Power and efficacy of those is without any other influence or causality the entire reason of their hardness and blindness and God is said to leave them and give them up to hardness of heart just as a Physician leaves his Patient to the incurable malignity of his Distemper without either giving him any thing to encrease it or without withdrawing the Application of any proper Remedies that might help to cure it 4. Fourthly and Lastly By this we may conceive and understand the misery and wretched state of the Devils and damned Souls who are under the utmost and irreversible state of this hardned and depraved temper of Soul which will naturally and necessarily make them miserable Those accursed Spirits were once capable of noble pleasures and improvements of mind but Sin and Disobedience to God has spoil'd and sunk and corrupted them and brought them to this wretched condition where their thoughts are filled only with rage and malice against God and with an extream horror and dread of him joyned with as great rage and vexation against themselves 'T is a terrible thing for a poor Creature willfully to offend and sin against its Great God impudently to affront and defie its Maker and trample upon his Laws and Government which is setting up its own Will Thoughts and Reason against his This will bring it to dreadfull Thoughts and Resentments one day whatever we think of it or however we slight it now Sin would not have had a Hell and Eternal torments prepared for it by a good God had it not been an opposition to the Will and Counsels of Heaven to all God's designs in making Us and making the World and contrary to all the measures of God's Wisdom and Government and to the Good and Welfare of the whole System of Beings Vice therefore by the order of things throws Men into this miserable state and a lower spirit by having its Thoughts its Will and Understanding so contrary and opposite to the highest spirit and by not having due regards and observances to him must necessarily fall into this state of Misery as well as of his utmost Wrath and Displeasure It 's Vices have depraved and corrupted its mind given it wrong Thoughts of God and of every thing else and sunk it into the love of evil and of every thing contrary to God and Goodness made it delight in mischief and in doing such things as are directly contrary to the good of its fellow Creatures if it were but a little gratifying to it self And now that false pleasure is gone off and it is left wholly to the sting of its Vices and it therefore reflects with infinite remorse upon the folly and the madness and the mischief of them but it cannot now redress or amend them or what injury it has done by them and therefore it must lie for ever under the insupportable weight and burden of them It cannot now raise up its thoughts to any love or desire of God whom it has always had a fix'd contempt and neglect of it cannot now take any delight in him or the apprehensions of him whom it seldom or ever thought of or ever car'd to Worship or Acknowledge before and there is nothing now to divert or entertain it its bodily Pleasures and worldly Enjoyments are gone off and not here to be met with and it is left wholly to its own uncomfortable thoughts and to the extream anguish and bitterness of them It never rightly understood nor loved either God or Goodness and now there is nothing else to be loved and therefore it must hate it self and every thing else It must now bear the misery of its own ill mind which it has been