for us to stand between us and God's justice and by his dismal sufferings and cursed death to expiate our offences so that we have not onely the infinite goodness of the divine nature to trust to but the vertue and efficacy of that sacrifice which the Son of God made of himself to plead for our forgiveness upon our repentance and amendment Nor was our blessed Saviour onely our propitiation to die for us and procure our attonement but he is still our Advocate continually interceding with his Father in the behalf of all true penitents and suing out their pardon for them in the Court of Heaven If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous who deprecates anger mitigates wrath and not onely barely intercedes for us but with authority demands the release of his captives redeemed by his bloud by virtue of God's promise and covenant And in order to the sufficient promulgation of this his gratious willingness to forgive us upon our repentance God hath provided and appointed an order of men to last as long as the world doth to propound to men this blessed overture and in God's name to beseech men to be reconciled to him Nay God condescends to prevent the worst of men by manifold blessings and favours daily obliging them by his grace and spirit and several providences towards them moving affecting and awakening the most grievous offenders to a timely consideration of their ways Though highly provoked he yet begins first with us so desirous is he of our welfare He hath not onely outwardly proclaimed pardon to all that will submit and sent his own Son on this message of peace but inwardly by his spirit and grace he solicites men to comply with it even where it is resisted and despised he forsaketh not men at their first denial he giveth them time to bethink and recollect themselves he doth not lie at the catch nor take present advantage against us but with infinite patience waits to be gratious to us hoping at last we shall be of a better mind he doth not soon despair of mens conversion and reformation he yet extends his grace towards those who abuse it and offers his pardon to those who slight it nothing is more highly pleasing and acceptable to him than for a sinner to return from the evil of his ways nay which is more yet he is not onely upon our repentance ready to overlook all that is past but he hath promised to reward our future obedience with eternal life so that we shall not onely upon our repentance be freed from those dismal punishments which we had rendred our selves liable to but likewise receive from God such a glorious recompence as is beyond all our conception or imagination Now if such love and kindness of Heaven towards us will not beget some relentings and remorse in us if such powerfull arguments will not prevail with us to grow wise and considerate it is impossible any should Let us all therefore smite upon our breasts and say O Lord we are highly sensible of our folly of our unworthiness and foul ingratitude for we have sinned against thee and done evil in thy sight and are no more worthy to be called thy children but we have heard that the great King of the World is a most mercifull King that he delights not in the death of sinners but had rather they should repent and live we cannot longer withstand or oppose such unspeakable goodness we are overcome by such wonderfull kindness and condescention we resign up our selves wholly to the conduct of his good spirit and will never withdraw or alienate our selves from him any more we will now become God's true and loyal subjects and continue such as long as we breathe nor shall any thing in the world be able to shake or corrupt our faith and allegiance to him What punishment can be too sore what state black and dismal enough for those who contemn all these offers and kindnesses of Heaven who will not by any means be won to look after and have mercy upon themselves to consult their own interest and welfare what pity can they expect who obstinately chuse to be miserable in despite of all the goodness of God and grace of the Gospel The Lord grant that we may all in this our day know and mind the things that belong to our everlasting peace before they are hid from our eyes The Eleventh Sermon 1 COR. XV. 35. But some man will say how are the dead raised up And with what body do they come THE Apostle having in the beginning of this Chapter most firmly established the truth and reality of our Saviour's resurrection from the dead proceeds to infer from thence the certainty of our own resurrection v. 12 13. Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead But if there be no resurrection of the dead then is not Christ risen It cannot now any longer seem an impossible or incredible thing to you that God should raise the dead since you have so plain and undoubted an example of it in the person of our blessed Lord who having been truly dead and buried is now alive and hath appeared unto many with the visible marks of his crucifixion still remaining in his body And to shew of what general concernment his resurrection was the graves were opened as St. Matthew tells us and many bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and appeared unto many the same power which raised Jesus from the dead is able also to quicken our mortal bodies Now in my Text the Apostle brings in some sceptical person objecting against this doctrine of the resurrection of the dead But some man will say how are the dead raised up and with what body do they come Two questions that every one almost is ready to start especially those who love to cavil at Religion and it hath not a little puzled such as have undertaken to give a rational account of our faith to give a full and satisfactory answer to them How can these things be How is it possible that those bodies should be raised again and joined to the souls which formerly inhabited them which many thousand years ago were either buried in the Earth or swallowed up in the Sea or devoured by fire which have been dissolved into the smallest atoms and those scattered over the face of the earth and dispersed as far asunder as the Heaven is wide nay which have undergone ten thousand several changes and transmutations have fructified the earth become the nourishment of other animals and those the food again of other men and so have been adopted into several other bodies How is it possible that all those little particles which made up suppose the body of Abraham should at the end of the world be again ranged and marshalled together and
nor are ever like to be 4. Another rule I would give is this that we should live under the due awe of God's continual presence with us and bear this always in our minds that the pure and holy God the judge of the world before whose impartial tribunal we must all shortly stand is conscious to every secret thought and imagination that passes through our minds and that he knows them altogether that God is in us all Ephes 4.6 One God and father of all who is above all and through all and in you all that he is present in the most inward corners and recesses of our hearts and knows every one of those things that come into our minds Now who of us is there but must confess that if his thoughts were all known and open to other men if his parents his friends his neighbours or enemies could have certain cognizance of them he should be infinitely more carefull about them than he is should not allow himself that liberty and freedom which he now takes should be as watchfull that his thoughts should appear to other men orderly rational and vertuous as he is now that his words and actions may be such and while we profess to believe that the transcendent Majesty of Heaven and earth is acquainted with all our private conceits is privy to all our wishes desires and purposes observes and takes notice of all the motions of our minds and that at the last day he will bring every secret thing into judgment are we not ashamed of shewing in his sight such folly of committing such wickedness in his presence should we blush and be confounded to have but a mortal man certainly know all the childish vain wanton lustfull thoughts that possess our minds and is it nothing to us that the great God of Heaven and earth beholds and sees them all Consider this then O vain man who pleasest thy self in thy own foolish conceits with thinking how finely thou dost cheat the world by a mask of Religion and godliness consider I say that there is not an evil thought that ever thou takest any pleasure and delight in not an evil device or imagination of thy heart but what is perfectly naked and open to that God with whom we have to doe That he is with thee in the silent and dark night when no other eye seeth thee when thou thinkest thy self safe from all discovery and that thou mayst then securely indulge thy own wicked appetites and corrupt inclinations for the light and darkness are both alike unto God he compasseth thy path and thy bed he is acquainted with all thy ways And the frequent consideration of these things would certainly produce a mighty awe in us and a suitable care not willingly to entertain or cherish any such thoughts as we should be ashamed to have known to all the world nor ever to suffer any other thoughts to take place or remain in our minds than such as we should not blush to have written in our foreheads 5. For the right government of your thoughts let me recommend to you above all things serious devotion especially humble and hearty prayer to God Almighty Man is compounded of two natures a rational and spiritual and a bodily by our bodies we are joined to the visible corporeal world by our souls we are allied to the immaterial invisible world now as by our outward senses the intercourse and correspondence is maintained between us and the corporeal world so by our devotions chiefly our acquaintance is begot and kept up with the spiritual world when we lay aside all thoughts of this lower world and the concerns of this life and apply our selves to the Father of spirits and make our humble addresses to him we then more especially converse with him as far as this state will admit of and the more frequently and constantly we doe this the more we shall abstract our minds from these inferiour objects which are so apt to entangle our hearts and take up all our thoughts and shall make the things of the other world become more familiar to us for when we betake our selves seriously to our prayers we do then bid adieu to all that is visible and sublunary and for that time endeavour to employ our minds wholly on what relates to another life and therefore consequently the oftner we doe this and the more hearty and serious we are in it the more our minds will be used and accustomed to divine thoughts and pious meditations and weaned from present sensible objects Every devout exercise conscientiously performed will season our spirits and leave a good tincture upon them and dispose us for worthy and excellent thoughts it is like keeping of good company a man is by degrees moulded and fashioned into some likeness unto them and on the other side the intermission neglect or formal and perfunctory performance of our devotion will soon breed in us a forgetfulness of God and heavenly things as omitting to speak of an absent or dead friend or neglecting to call him to our mind by degrees wears him quite out of our thoughts and memory so that you see a due sense of God upon our minds and of those things that belong to our greatest interests is by nothing so well maintained as by our constant devotion this is like seeing our friends often or conversing with them every day it preserves acquaintance with them it cherishes our love and kindness towards them I end all with that excellent Collect of our Church Almighty God unto whom all hearts be open all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy holy spirit that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnifie thy holy name through Christ our Lord. Amen A SERMON Preached at the Anniversary Meeting OF THE GENTLEMEN Educated at St. Paul's SCHOOL The Sixth Sermon 1 COR. XIII 4 5 6 7. Charity suffereth long and is kind charity envieth not charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up c. THE chief and most laudable design of this and other the like Anniversary Meetings being to promote love kindness and friendship amongst men from the consideration of some particular relations by which over and above what doth belong to us in common with all men and Christians we are more nearly united and linked one to the other I thought I could not entertain you with any thing more proper to this Solemnity than a discourse upon these words wherein I intend I. To describe unto you wherein this amicable friendly temper and mutual love which we are to further amongst our selves this day doth consist And II. To recommend it especially to your care and practice who have had the advantage of a liberal and ingenuous education I. To shew you wherein true and undissembled love doth consist which I shall do onely by paraphrasing or commenting as briefly as I can upon this most excellent description of Charity given us
of an habitual sinner is a work of time and patience evil customs must be mastered and subdued by degrees and we must be forced to destine particular times and to use particular proper means for the gaining of the several graces required in a Christians we must first encounter one vice or lust then another and after we have done our best yet perhaps a temptation may surprise us unawares and we may fall again into the mire even after we have washed our selves in some measure and so create our selves new work and greater trouble we must expect sometimes to come off by the worst before we obtain the final conquest and our lusts after they have been routed may perchance rally and make head again We must not therefore be presently discouraged or faint and grow weary in these our conflicts with sin and vice for if we can but bear undauntedly the first shock and stand out the first assaults the force of our enemies will sensibly decline we shall every day gain ground the work will grow much easier upon our hands and the means of grace if we are but constant and unwearied in the use of them will never fail of success 6. Lastly Let us always second our good resolutions with devout prayers for the aids of God's holy Spirit to strengthen us in this our undertaking to animate us with patience and courage to fight for us and with us against all the enemies of our souls that he would furnish us with an inward power in our minds whereby our evil inclinations may be changed and that by the strength of his grace we may be freed from those ill impressions that formerly subdued us For by this means God is not onely made an assistent but a witness and a party and our resolutions come near to the nature of a vow by this we daily oblige our selves afresh to God and renew our resolutions this adds the greatest strength and solemnity to them and though they were at first begun upon too slight considerations or too suddenly or weakly made yet when once we seriously make God concerned in them they will then become firm and strong And indeed he that finds in himself no mind to pray to God for his assistence his resolutions be they what they will are certainly vain his neglect to implore God's aid is a sure sign that he hath no mind to keep them Often therefore prostrate your selves at his footstool beseech him not to despise the day of small things not to quench the smoaking flax nor to break the bruised reed that he would be pleased to bless and prosper these beginnings and first attempts towards a new life profess your dependence upon his help and assistence and beg of him most earnestly never to leave you nor forsake you And if thus resolved thus trusting upon God's grace thus diligent in the use of all due means we yet fail of overcoming our sins and lusts I shall then readily confess that there is but little heed to be given to the promises of the Gospel that our misery is unavoidable and that God hath not provided a sufficient remedy for sinners but therefore it is onely that we so often fall short and find temptations too hard for all our good purposes because we resolve but by halves and unadvisedly we resolve we know not what we doe it rashly or sillily or humoursomely upon no reasons or none that will hold This is the second hindrance of mens repentance the unsuccesfulness of former resolutions which ought to be laid onely at our own door and charged upon our selves as our own fault III. Another great hindrance of mens repentance is the hope of long life and better opportunity of repenting hereafter And indeed of all the Devil 's artifices to keep men off from amending their lives this is that which prevails most and with most men they content themselves with a repentance in reversion and continually postpone this one thing necessary After this or that business is dispatched this or that lust satisfied this or that turn served when their bodies are as infirm as their souls then they will take care of both together If you look abroad into the world you will find this is that by which chiefly wicked men maintain the quiet and peace of their minds for they cannot endure to think of passing out of this life and appearing before God in an impenitent state but their full purpose is to doe something some time or other they cannot well tell what nor when by which they hope to make some amends for all their former follies and miscarriages This therefore is our most difficult task not so much to persuade men of the necessity of repentance as to prevail with them unalterably to fix a time when this change shall begin and the care of Religion take place we find it most hard to convince them that it is necessary now at this very present to set about it we are thought a little too hot and hasty when we press wicked men to leave their sins to day even whilst it is called to day as long as they have so much time before them to doe it in This is the most fatal cheat men put upon themselves so that I doubt not to say that the infernal regions of darkness and despair are not crowded by any sort of persons so much as by those who fully designed and intended to have repented before they died It were easie now at large to shew the infinite unreasonableness and danger of such delay but I shall content my self with propounding to you these two considerations 1. That if we be unwilling to repent now it is not likely that we shall be more willing at any other time 2. That if we think our selves not able to doe it now we shall be less able hereafter 1. If we be unwilling to repent and amend now it is not likely that we shall be more willing or inclined to it at any other time for the same reason that makes any man defer it now will be as forcible and prevalent at another time Since the man hath found no great inconvenience from the sins of the last week or month he sees not why he may not as well venture on them for another and after that he says he will certainly become a new man but when that time comes yet still God continues his patience and is not weary of bearing with him so that he 'll think he may still venture to put it off once more and then he will not fail to perform his good intentions of amending his life And this is most probably the consequence of such vain purposes of leaving our sins hereafter for the onely objection we have against doing it now is because this time is present and we are loth as yet to put our selves to so much trouble and pain as this work doth require and therefore when to morrow is as this day and comes to be
for those celestial and glorious mansions which God hath provided for us an earthly sensual mind is so much wedded to bodily pleasures as that it cannot enjoy its self without them and is incapable of tasting or relishing any other though really greater and infinitely to be preferred before them Nay such persons as mind onely the concerns of the body and are wholly led by its motions and inclinations as do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were embody their souls would esteem it a great unhappiness to be cloathed with a spiritual and heavenly body it would be like cloathing a beggar in princely apparel Such glorious bodies would be uneasie to them they would not know how to behave themselves in them they would e'en be glad to retire and put on their rags again But now by denying the solicitations of our flesh and contradicting its lusts and appetites and weaning our selves from bodily pleasures and subduing and mortifying our carnal lusts we fit and dispose our selves for another state and when our souls are thus spiritualized they will soon grow weary of this flesh and long for their departure they will be always ready to take wing and fly away into the other world where at last they will meet with a body suited to their rational and spiritual appetites 2. From hence we may give some account of the different degrees of glory in the other state For though all good men shall have glorious bodies yet the glory of them all shall not be equal they shall all shine as stars and yet one star differeth from another star in glory there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars so also is the resurrection of the dead Some will have bodies more bright and resplendent than others Those who have done some extraordinary service to their Lord who have suffered bravely and courageously for his name or those who by the constant exercise of severity and mortification have arrived to an higher pitch and attained to a greater measure of purity and holiness than others shall shine as stars of the first magnitude Dan. 12.3 And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever It is certain that the purest and most spiritual bodies shall be given to those who are most fitted for them to the most heavenly and spiritual souls so that this is no little encouragement to us to make the greatest proficiency we can possibly in the ways of vertue and piety since the more we wean our selves from these present things and sensible objects the more glorious and heavenly will our bodies be at the resurrection 3. Let this consideration engage us patiently to bear those afflictions sicknesses and bodily pains which we are exercised with in this life The time of our redemption draweth nigh let us but hold out awhile longer and all tears shall be wiped from our eyes and we shall never sigh nor sorrow any more And how soon shall we forget all the misery and uneasiness we endured in this earthly tabernacle when once we are cloathed with that house which is from above we are now but in our journey towards the heavenly Canaan are pilgrims and strangers here and therefore must expect to struggle with many straits and difficulties but it will not be long before we shall come to our journeys end and that will make amends for all we shall then be in a quiet and safe harbour out of the reach of those storms and dangers wherewith we are here encompassed we shall then be at home at our Father's house no more exposed to those inconveniences which so long as we abide in this tabernacle of clay we are subject unto And let us not forfeit all this happiness onely for want of a little more patience and constancy but let us hold out to the end and we shall at last receive abundant recompence for all the trouble and uneasiness of our passage and be enstated in perfect endless rest and peace 4. Let this especially arm and fortify us against the fear of death for death is now conquered and disarmed and can doe us no hurt It separates us indeed from this body for a while but it is onely that we may receive it again far more pure and glorious It takes away our old rags and bestows upon us royal robes either therefore let us lay aside the profession of this hope of the resurrection unto life or else let us with more courage expect our own dissolution and with greater patience bear that of our friends and relations Wo is us who are forced still to sojourn in Mesech and to dwell in the tents of Kedar for how can it be well with us so long as we are chained to these earthly carcasses As God therefore said once to Jacob fear not to go down into Egypt for I will go down with thee and I will surely bring thee up again so may I say to you fear not to go down into the house of rottenness fear not to lay down your heads in the dust for God will certainly bring you out again and that after a much more glorious manner Let death pull down this house of clay since God hath undertaken to rear it up again infinitely more splendid and usefull 5. And Lastly Let us all take care to live so here that we may be accounted worthy to obtain the other world and the resurrection from the dead Let us rise in a moral sense from the death of sin to the life of righteousness and then the second death shall have no power over us A renewed and purified mind and soul shall never fail of an heavenly and glorious body in the other world but a sensual and worldly mind as it hath no affection for so can it find no place in those pure regions of light and happiness Since therefore we have this comfortable hope of a glorious resurrection unto life eternal let us purify our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit let us hold fast our profession and stedfastly adhere to our duty whatever we may lose or suffer by it here as knowing we shall reap if we faint not And this is Saint Paul's exhortation with which he concludes his discourse of the resurrection Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. A SERMON Preached before the House of COMMONS The Twelfth Sermon JOB XXVII 5 6. God forbid that I should justify you till I die I will not remove my integrity from me My righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live THESE words may be considered as the resolution of a truly honest man whose vertue and goodness depends not upon any outward accidents or
been brought to believe that it is a duty incumbent on or rather a privilege belonging to none but great and exemplary Saints to strong and well-grounded Christians that this Sacrament is not food proper for babes and novices for those who often fail in their duty who are still onely wrestling with their lusts but have not yet got the mastery or victory over them that we ought first to be fully assured of our salvation before we come to this holy table that this ordinance serves onely to strengthen and confirm our faith and repentance and all other Christian graces and vertues but not to beget any of them in us Now here thus much must be granted that this Sacrament doth belong onely to those that are within the pale of the visible Church onely to baptised Christians that do publickly own their faith and Christian profession that it is no means of converting Jews or Infidels and that even Christians by notorious evil lives whereby they become scandalous to their brethren and incur the censures of the Church may justly forfeit all their right and title to this Sacrament and farther that it is a bold prophanation of our Saviour's institution for any wicked person resolved to continue such to presume to bless God for that mercy and love of a Redeemer which he doth not in the least value Thus far we are on all hands agreed but not now to engage in any matter of controversie I shall onely say that I can see no reason why to one that is really sensible of his sins and miscarriages contrary to his baptismal vow and profession and maketh some kind of resolution to forsake them why I say this Sacrament as well as prayer or any other duties of Religion may not be reckoned as a means of begetting true repentance in him of turning him from sin to righteousness from the power of Satan to God and for this I shall offer onely this one plain argument which is obvious to every man that if the death of Christ it self his bitter passion his whole gratious undertaking for us was amongst other reasons designed by God also to convince us of the evil and danger of sin to bring us out of love with it and to engage us to a new and better life surely then the consideration of the same things represented to us in the Sacrament the commemoration of his death and passion there made may also serve for the same great ends and purposes If Christ died that we should die unto sin certainly then the memory of his death may justly be accounted a proper means of killing sin in us nay what in the nature of the thing can be imagined a more likely instrument to turn us from a life of sin to the practice of holiness than the frequent consideration of what our blessed Lord hath done and suffered for us and if so it cannot be necessary that this change should be completely wrought in us before we ever solemnly commemorate his bloudy passion for that were to suppose it necessary that the end should be obtained before we use the means It is not therefore absolutely necessary that we should be fully assured that we are in a state of grace and in God's favour and have repented enough and truly forsaken all our sins before we venture on this Sacrament it is sufficient that we heartily and sincerely resolve against them that we approach the Lord's table with honest and devout minds that we be really willing and desirous to use all means to become better and if thus disposed we come to the Sacrament I doubt not but we shall find it a most effectual means for the enabling us to leave our sins and to lead a better life It is not our unworthiness but our resolving to continue in that state that makes us unqualified for this Sacrament 4. If therefore by your unworthiness you mean that you live in sin and are resolved to doe so and therefore dare not come to the Sacrament for fear you should farther provoke God almighty I will suppose that in this you act prudently and warily but then I would advise you for the same reason and on the same account to leave off all other duties of Religion as well as this if you would act upon the same grounds you ought to reckon it the safest way never to pray to God any more nor ever again to appear in any religious assemblies nor to join in any part of God's solemn worship for God hath often declared that he doth far more abominate all such formal whining cringing hypocrites and will more severely punish them than the open and bold contemners of his authority and laws The prayer of the wicked man is an abomination to the Lord. He hates the addresses of those who call him father and master and in words acknowledge him but yet continually doe the things that are displeasing in his sight His soul loaths and nauseates all the services of impure worshippers You do but mock God basely fawn upon and impudently flatter him when you present your selves before him as his people and servants and yet secretly hate him and wish him out of the world nay for the same reason for which you forbear the Sacrament e'en lay aside your whole Christian profession openly renounce your Baptism deny your Saviour disown his Religion for that is the safest course whilst you resolve to continue in sin and disobedience for God's wrath shall be in the first place revealed against wicked Christians and better will it be in the last day for Tyre and Sidon for Sodom and Gomorra than for those who were called by Christ's name and yet did not depart from iniquity If this pretence be true that you go out of the Church when the Sacrament is to be administred lest you should farther provoke God by unworthy receiving it by the same reason keep from the Church altogether lest you as highly provoke God by being present at those prayers you do not heartily join in nor ever intend to live according to Or rather to speak yet more fully what is the true consequence of this you now know your selves unworthy and are resolved yet at least for some time to continue such alas what need such as you be afraid of this Text In this case it ought to seem indifferent to you whether you receive or not Damnation here threatned cannot be supposed reasonably to scare him from the Sacrament who runs the constant hazard of it by living in known sin This can be no such terrible word to an habitual and resolved sinner He that can swear and talk prophanely and live intemperately and loosely and without any fear or regret commit mortal sin in vain pretends fear of damnation for not doing that which is indeed his duty for it is a most odd and ridiculous thing to be afraid of doing what our Saviour hath commanded us whilst we are not in the least afraid every day of doing what he
unless it be to find out new delights and surprizing extravagancies But what are all these now other than the vain conceits of mad Men who during their phrenzy do many times think themselves the wisest greatest and richest Men in the World and take as much delight in such idle dreams as others do in real enjoyments but this pleasure lasts no longer than till they recover the use of their understandings and therefore in this case we are not to give credit to what wicked Men say nor judge of the pleasure and content of their lives by what outwardly appears Even in laughter the heart is sorrowfull saith Salomon and it is very possible for one who seems to spend all his days in mirth and jollity yet really to be in a very uneasie condition all the while which appears from this that such as are sensual and licentious find it best to keep themselves in a continual hurry and heat and as soon as they are tired with one sin presently to betake themselves to some other for fear they should unhappily light upon a Bible or a sober thought for this reason it is that they hate nothing so much as to be alone and be forced to converse with themselves and that if they chance to fall into any affliction or calamity they are the most dejected and disconsolate persons in the World all these are certain signs that they are haunted with dreadfull and ghastly apprehensions and jealousies which will ever and anon be crouding in and sometimes even when they are taking their fill of pleasures But on the other side Religion denies us no pleasures which are manly and suitable to our natures and forbids us onely such excesses as in themselves are both tedious and nauseous and layeth the foundation of that solid peace and joy which no external thing whatever is able to shake or discompose In short if to be carried away with every vanity and whimsie to be swayed by every unreasonable humour and lust to be a slave to every Man 's frolick and beck to try the utmost strength of our bodies to run a course of all diseases to undergoe all reproach and infamy to spend our estates and time in pursuit of short life rotten bones and wretched poverty if this be pleasure then for certain there is enough of it to be found in a dissolute and vitious life 2. With such as are not altogether so fool-hardy and but a little better husbands of their health and estates this kind of Philosophy will not take at all but if you would get them into a good opinion of wickedness it must be by propounding to them some temporal advantage Vertue or vice is very indifferent to such but what they can save or get most by is always the best Profit and gain do strangely mollifie sin and take away much from the odiousness and ugliness of it it shall be the most just and equitable thing in the World if it can help us to raise a new family or recover one that is decayed if it may serve to maintain our selves or relations if by it we may oblige and obtain the favour of any great men who will be so condescending as to admit us into a society with them though it be onely in their vices for men are in the worst instances ready to please and humour those they hope to get something from or upon whom they depend But to this I shall reply nothing but onely ask our Saviour's question What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul If we sell our integrity and hopes of future happiness onely to get a little of this world we make a foolish bargain And I hope I need say no more in this place since those onely who are made of the basest and coursest metal and are of poor and degenerous spirits are capable of being ensnared by this temptation 3. Another way men have of enticing others to sin is by assuring them that there is no such great evil in it as is commonly believed That when once we have conquered our fear of sinning we have seen the worst of it that the evil of sin lies most in a little scandal that is cast upon it by some doting Philosophers or melancholy Enthusiasts or some covetous Usurers who will not be at the expence of it or by those who receive tythes to declaim against it that the nature of good and evil hath been always matter of dispute and there is hardly any vice but what hath been not onely approved but rewarded by some whole Nation or other that at the best Religion is onely the politick contrivance of some wise Governours who knew how to manage and make advantage of the simplicity and credulity of ignorant people but that all things are in their own natures indifferent Now is it not strange that men should ever be persuaded that it is as good to kill as to obey ones Parents that we deserve as much commendation when we repay kindnesses with ill-will and injuries as when we relieve those that are in necessity that cruelty treachery and malice are as amiable in themselves and as innocent dispositions as mercifulness fidelity and good nature and why may we not as well believe that wisedom is to be found onely in Bedlam and that all that hath been ever spoken or done by men hitherto counted in their wits hath been indeed onely the effect of madness and distemper'd brains though some politick men for notable ends have cunningly made common people for this great while to imagine quite otherwise But I forbear 4. And Lastly That which prevails most powerfully is to persuade men that there is no great danger in sin Some sins may indeed prove inconvenient but the pleasure recompenseth that some may be of ill report but the profit will pay off that score and if sin should chance to have any evil in it what 's that to us when we are dead the onely fear is of an after-reckoning And therefore do they who would fain sin without controll especially labour that they may free themselves and others from all suspicions of a future state raking up every trifling objection that hath been of old used by any of the Atheistical Philosophers and hath been a thousand times answered and inventing new ones as far as their wit serves them But if after all there still remain any doubts concerning another life then they plead how little we know or understand of it or how absurd it is to think that a man shall be for ever punished for what he did by mistake or surprize or strength of passion or height of bloud or good nature or civility or to save his life or to maintain his reputation family or the like But will nothing convince men of the certainty of future punishments but their feeling of them or do they think that God hath as little regard
for those Laws which he hath made and by which he will govern and judge the world as wicked men themselves have but should we grant all that can be asked in this case and suppose it very doubtfull whether our souls are immortal and surely no man will pretend to prove it impossible that they should be so nay should we suppose it great odds that there is not a future state yet that man doth nevertheless most notoriously betray his want of prudence and discretion who will not contradict his own brutish inclinations and deny himself some short pleasures and chuse that course of life which our reason no less than our Religion doth recommend to us rather than run the least hazard though it were of an hundred to one of being for ever miserable And thus much concerning being enticed to wicked practices And now I might discourse at large of another sort of enticing which is to erroneous and pernicious doctrines and of such as go about to inveigle and corrupt our judgments and debauch our understandings by seducing us to the belief of opinions no less wicked than false But I shall at present onely crave leave briefly to shew 1. What danger men are in of being seduced by such temptations 2. What is our best armour and security against them 1. What danger we are in of being enticed from that profession and belief which is publickly taught and own'd amongst us which danger arises partly from the earnestness importunity or the arts that subtile men use to bring us off but most especially from the doctrines themselves which they would learn us and instill into us which are such as are most pleasing and gratefull to one who delights in his sins such as cannot but be most acceptable to him as giving him hopes of heaven though he deny himself very little for it such as lay the grounds and foundations of sinning chearfully without any fear or remorse and therefore as long as the greatest part of the world love vice and ease will succeed and be greedily entertained It is no hard matter to persuade men to believe what they before-hand wish were true and there needs no great store of proof or arguments to recommend those opinions to the sensual and prophane which give them leave to fulfill their lusts without any regret of conscience or dread of punishment Is it not a comfortable doctrine and will it not be readily embraced by every resolved sinner that after a long wicked life at the last gasp a bare sorrow for sin out of fear of hell with the Priest's absolution shall at least free him from eternal pains and take away the guilt of his sins so that he need not be afraid of any thing besides a sudden death which happens but seldom When he is at any time disturbed with the sense of his dangerous condition when the forced remembrance of his sins doth gall and fret his mind and fill him with fears and melancholy thoughts what a relief must it needs be to him to be assured that it is but going to a Priest and confessing his sins and undergoing some small penances and he is safe for then he may go on in his full carriere with the greatest security imaginable then he may sin with judgment and commit all manner of wickedness with discretion He who hath no mind to part with his lusts is easily persuaded that they are invincible nor is it very difficult to make him who is loth to take any pains or be at any trouble for keeping of Christ's commands to believe that they are impossible to be kept and that our Saviour fulfilled even his own law in our stead and that we have nothing to doe but to believe that he hath done all and be thankfull In a word where the obscurity of Scripture or the difficulty of the matter or the weakness of our understandings have caused one to mistake multitudes have been drawn aside to the most pernicious errours by their lusts and secular interests and carnal designs and love to gain sloth or sensuality and by this chiefly are the several dissenting parties amongst us maintained and do encrease their numbers to wit by levelling the doctrine of Christianity to mens corrupt inclinations and passions whilst we of the Church of England dare not be so false either to our own trust or the souls of men as to give them hopes of everlasting bliss on any other condition but that of living godlily righteously and soberly in this present world from all which follows 2. That our security against such temptations doth not consist in much reading and great learning in our skill in controversies or cunning in managing a dispute or ability of discerning between good argument and sophistry so much as in an honest mind and humble heart an unfeigned desire of knowing and sincere endeavour of doing the will of God Him who is thus minded God by his infinite goodness is ingaged not to suffer to fall into any errour of mischievous effect and as for other mistakes wherein a good life is not concerned God is ready to overlook and pardon what is the result onely of the imperfection of our present state besides which honesty of mind or love to vertue is in it self and its own nature our best preservative against being infected with any bad opinions I am far from taking upon me to judge or condemn those that were born and bred up and have lived well under any forms of Religion different from what is established amongst us for it is very possible for men to hold opinions very wicked and yet not perceiving nor acknowledging the just consequences of them to live very good lives yet this is true that one that designs nothing so much as pleasing God and saving his soul and is willing to take any pains for it and hath no by-ends to serve will not desire to be excused from the mortification of his lusts subduing his appetites crucifying his flesh and from the severities of an holy life by substituting in the room of them pilgrimages vain oblations bodily austerities or such formal devotions as very bad men may perform and be very bad still Those principles which most advance the honour of God by laying the strictest obligations on men to all manner of goodness he will hearken to and readily believe but if they serve the ends of avarice or ambition if they are apt to make men dissolute or licentious lazie or presumptuous this alone to such an one will be reason sufficient utterly to reject them let them be propounded to him with never so much advantage or subtilty I shall conclude all with this that did I know any constituted Church in the world that did teach a Religion more holy and usefull that delivered doctrines in themselves more reasonable or in their consequences tending more directly to the peace of Societies and the good of every particular person to the promoting of piety and true morality and
them If he be not pleased with if he doth not entertain such thoughts upon some other accounts there is no more Religion or vertue in fixing his mind upon God than there is in thinking of the Sun or Moon or Stars or any proposition in the Mathematicks or any other innocent thing or notion for thus an atheist may consider much God's nature and attributes and providence onely to pick a quarrel with him or find out something to object against them And on the other side the best men may and sometimes must think of those things that are sinfull how else should they ever repent of them beg God's pardon for or resolve against them there is no reading in the holy Scriptures or any other histories wherein the evil actions and speeches of wicked men are recorded there is no living or conversing in the world where so much evil is every day committed without thinking of that which is sinfull but then in good men the thought of any such thing is always with grief and detestation they think of it as of a thing that is most hatefull and pernicious to them as men think of a plague or mischance shivering at the very naming of it and praying to God to preserve them from it Thus our thoughts are not to be called or counted evil onely from the object of them Nor yet farther by evil thoughts do I understand any sudden thoughts starting up in our minds before we are aware which will not I believe be imputed to us as sins though if consented to they are undoubtedly evil for nothing will be reckoned to us as a sin or punished as such but what is some way or other voluntary and might have been helped or avoided Now such first motions of sin as we commonly call them which come upon us nobis non scientibus nec volentibus without our knowledge and against our wills are onely the exercise of our vertues when presently checked and contradicted but when consented to and delighted in they then bring forth sin and sin when it is finished brings forth death But to be more particular I shall first of all shew you when our thoughts may be counted voluntary and we are truly and justly answerable for them Secondly propound to you some of the several kinds of evil thoughts Thirdly lay down some practical rules for the due government of our thoughts I. I shall shew when we are justly answerable for our thoughts or when they may be reckoned voluntary and here I shall onely give these three instances 1. When evil thoughts are plainly occasioned by any thing that was voluntary in us then they are to be accounted voluntary and sinfull What our thoughts shall be depends very much upon the choice of the outward objects that we converse most with in the world and they will be oftenest on those things which we delight most in and accustome our selves most unto So far forth therefore as our company discourse employments entertainments books recreations wine nay I may add diet too do contribute to the stirring up in our minds wanton and lustfull covetous or ambitious angry or revengefull thoughts so far are such thoughts voluntary in us and though they may come upon us and arise in our minds without any actual consent or command of our wills yet we are justly answerable for them as having by some wilfull act of our own disposed our selves for such thoughts By sensuality and looseness and intemperance and indulging themselves in bodily pleasures men may so debase their minds that hardly any thoughts shall offer themselves but what are beastly and lewd or at best trifling and useless Empty light vain foolish extravagant thoughts are the natural product of idleness sloth pride and luxury So that though what we shall think of be not at all times in our power yet it is in our power in a very great measure to abstain from those things which are apt to incite evil thoughts and minister fewel to them from all incentives or provocations to inordinate or filthy imaginations And as far as we our selves give occasion to the raising up of evil thoughts in our minds so far are they voluntary and imputable to us 2. When evil thoughts proceed from gross supine negligence and carelesness then are we accountable for them when we keep no guard at all over our minds and fancies but give them free liberty wildly to rove and ramble and let what will come into our thoughts if they then prove vile and wicked it is very much our own fault and we must answer for them because we then willingly prostitute our minds to every lust and vanity And when we set the doors wide open without any watch or guard we must blame our selves if dishonest men enter in sometimes as well as good friends Indeed notwithstanding all our care to secure our selves thieves may perchance break in upon us or creep in unawares whilst we sleep or intermit our watch for we cannot be always upon the guard the enemy may sow some tares inject and dart in some evil thoughts Though we keep never so strict an eye over our selves and endeavour to the utmost to keep our souls pure and chast yet sometimes by surprize through casual non-attendance and inadvertency or the cunning and activity of our spiritual enemies a base wicked thought may suddenly possess our minds nay and abide in us for some time before we take notice of it but then the mind is mostly passive in this it is ravished rather than voluntarily commits lewdness this is our weakness and infirmity onely which God is always ready to pity and pardon Our souls are active and busie they cease to be and exist when they do not think of something or other Now if we do not take care to furnish our minds continually with good and usefull matter for our thoughts they will soon find out something else to exercise themselves upon and when we let them run loosely and at random and think at all adventures as it happens we then tempt the Devil to chuse a subject for us we expose our selves to the wildness and extravagance of our own vain imaginations and when we keep no watch no wonder though we be overrun with swarms of vagrant thoughts When therefore our evil thoughts arise from gross neglect and carelesness they then may be accounted voluntary and charged on us as sins 3. Though evil thoughts may be involuntary at the first starting of them being occasioned by what we could not avoid hearing or seeing or coming upon us unawares or proceeding from the temper and habit of our bodies or the accidental impulses and motions of the animal spirits in our brains which are the most immediate instruments the soul uses in her operations though thus the first rise of evil thoughts may be involuntary yet if we with pleasure entertain and cherish them if our fancies are tickled by them if they are delightfull and gratefull to us this
aversation and disrespect In a word if you would excell others in point of true worth and excellency endeavour to get your souls possessed with this divine grace of charity which is the onely thing that doth truly ennoble a man that doth exalt and dignify his nature and raise him above the rest of his fellow-creatures A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL The Seventh Sermon NUMB. XXIII 10. Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his I Shall not now trouble you with enquiring into the strict meaning of these words as uttered by the Prophet Balaam but I shall consider them onely as they are commonly understood viz. as containing in them the secret wish and desire of most wicked and ungodly men who though they are loth to be at the pains of living the life yet would fain die the death of the righteous and would gladly that their latter end should be like his As well as men love their sins yet they would not willingly be damned for them They can't endure to think seriously of passing out of this World in an impenitent state For it is what but a very few can arrive unto wholly to shake off or wear out all sense of good and evil of reward and punishment The fears of another World will ever and anon be stirring and erowding themselves in and will fret and gall the Sinner sorely and make his thoughts troublesome to him An uneasie bed a broken sleep a sudden affliction an hand-writing on the wall will sometimes force us whether we will or no to smite upon our breasts and reflect sadly upon our past dishonourable misdeeds and the satal issue of them and very often our own conscience will fly in our face notwithstanding all our arts to divert it or our charms to lull it asleep nor could a wicked man ever be at quiet in his mind but that he is resolved by God's grace when time shall serve to doe something or other he doth not well know what or when whereby he may obtain pardon for all the follies and miscarriages of his life past I am very confident I now represent to you the secret mind of most wicked Christians who at any time think seriously viz. that that which makes them so hardy and stupidly neglectfull of their immortal concerns and so jocund and pleasant whilst they live in plain known sins is this that they promise themselves and depend on God's goodness for time and opportunity of making amends in a lingring sickness or in a declining age They are now young and healthfull strong and lusty their pulse beats evenly their bloud moves briskly their spirits are active and subtile and they feel no symptoms of any approaching sickness Hereafter therefore they think it will be time enough to look after another life when they shall be nigh leaving this when their bodies shall begin to decline and their strength to decay and death shall make its approaches Thus there are as it were two ways propounded to Heaven one and that is counted a very dull tedious and difficult passage by the constant doing of good by living righteously and godlily and soberly in this present world The other which is a shorter cut and a much broader way by repenting at our death of a wicked life and it is not at all hard to guess which way the greatest part of men will chuse And would this doe it were indeed a very fine and subtile management of things for thus we might swallow the bait and never be hurt by the hook we might have both the pleasure of being wicked and the hopes of being saved We might spare our selves all the trouble of Religion and yet not miss of the reward of it We might spend all our days as we list gratify every vain humour and appetite enjoy this world as much as we can deny our selves nothing that our lusts and passions crave live all our life long without God in the world and yet at last die in the Lord. The great enemy of mankind hath not in all his magazine a more deadly engine for the destruction of souls Nor is there any thing I know of that doth so notoriously frustrate and defeat the whole design of our Saviour's coming into the world and render our Christianity so useless to us as this one presumption that the whole of Religion or all that is necessary to salvation may be performed upon a sick or death-bed For if it may be done as well at the last in good truth what need we trouble our selves about it sooner what need we disquiet our selves in vain about the exercises of vertue and piety or forego the sweet pleasures of this life or constantly maintain a painfull and ungratefull conflict with the inclinations and inordinate cravings of our flesh or renounce our secular interests or undertake a sharp and troublesome service whenas it is but at any time lamenting over our sins and trusting to the performances of Jesus Christ and we shall be as secure of Paradise as if we had all our days kept a conscience void of offence both towards God and towards all men and in so doing shall run no other hazard but that of dying suddenly which doth not happen to one man in five hundred Eternal bliss and happiness is a thing of so very great and weighty consideration of such vast moment to us that to put off the thoughts thereof or provision for it but one day after that we are become capable of thinking and acting like men is certainly a very great and unaccountable indiscretion but for a man to give all his days to himself and to his own pleasure and humour and to reserve for God for whose service he was born but one and that the worst and the last This is surely madness beyond all measure The extreme folly and danger of such practices I shall now indeavour to evince by shewing briefly these three things I. How little all that amounts to which can be done by a wicked man in order to the obtaining the pardon of his sins on a sick or death-bed II. How far short all this comes of what the holy Scriptures require as the indispensable conditions of salvation III. What small hopes or encouragement God hath any where given men to believe that he will at all abate or remit of those conditions he hath propounded in the Gospel or accept of any thing less than a good life I. How little all that amounts to which can be done by a wicked man on his sick or death-bed Now some at this time can doe more some less according as God affords them space and ability but ordinarily the whole of a death-bed repentance is no more than a few good words and wishes a superficial confession of sin and wickedness in general some broken prayers and pious expressions to the Minister who then shall be sure to be sent for in all haste however despised by the sinner all his
sins before ever he will save us from the penal consequences of them So that the efficacy of Christ's undertaking for us and the necessity of our own personal righteousness do very well consist together and each hath its proper work in obtaining the pardon of our sins and the favour of God Our Saviour's incarnation and perfect obedience even unto death is the sole meritorious cause of our acceptance with God and of our salvation He alone purchased those great benefits for us made atonement paid our ransome and procured this covenant of grace from God wherein eternal life is promised to penitent sinners But then these great advantages are not immediately and absolutely conferr'd upon us but under certain qualifications and conditions of repentance faith and sincere obedience for the performance of which the holy Spirit is never wanting to sincere endeavours We do therefore vilely affront and disgrace our blessed Lord when we boldly expect to be saved by him whilst we continue in our sins Nay we ought to think our selves as much beholden to him for his doctrine and the assistences of his grace and the glorious promises of the Gospel by which we are made truly holy and righteous as for his sufferings and death by which he satisfied God's justice and purchased the pardon of our sins 2. I shall hence make that inference of the Apostle Heb. 2.3 How then shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation Hath God so abundantly provided for our happiness hath his onely begotten Son done and suffer'd so much for it and shall we be so sottish and stupid as foolishly to despise it when it hath been so signally the unwearied care of Heaven to procure it for us It is onely our own advantage that is design'd God projects no private profit nor doth any accrue to him from the salvation of all mankind Shall we our selves therefore madly defeat all these designs of grace and goodness towards us by our invincible resolution to ruine and undoe our selves Did the onely begotten Son of God as at this time descend from the regions of bliss and happiness was he born into this miserable world and did he humble himself to take our flesh that by that means he might exalt mankind and make us capable of dwelling in the highest Heavens and all this out of mere pity and compassion of our desperate condition and shall we think the denying our selves a lust or the satisfaction of a forbidden appetite or a short-liv'd pleasure too much for the obtaining the same glory Did he live here a poor mean and contemptible life and at last die a shamefull death to merit eternal life for us and for the obtaining the same shall we grudge to live a sober temperate and honest life Oh how will this consideration one day aggravate our torment What vexation and anxiety will it one day create in our minds with what horrour and despair will it fill our guilty souls Had God predestinated us from all eternity to everlasting misery so that it had been impossible for us to have avoided our sad fate had he never provided a Mediatour and Redeemer for us it would have been a great ease in another world to consider that we could no ways have escaped this doom But when we shall reflect upon the infinite love and kindness of God and how desirous he was that all men should be saved when we shall consider the wonderfull pity and compassion of our Saviour in being born and dying for us and procuring for us such easie terms of salvation and so often by his Spirit moving and exciting us to our duty and the care of our souls when we shall think of those many obligations he hath laid upon us and the wise methods he hath used for our recovery and amendment and how that nothing was wanting on God's part but that we might now have been praising blessing and adoring his goodness and wisedom amongst the glorified Spirits in the happy regions of undisturbed peace and joy and yet that we through our own most shamefull neglect though often warned to the contrary are now forced in vain to seek but for a drop of water to cool the tip of our tongues How will this heighten our future pains and prove the very essence of Hell Better shall it be in the last day for Tyre and Sidon for Sodom and Gomorrah places overrun with lust and barbarity for the Nations that sit in darkness and never heard of these glad tidings of a Saviour than for you to whom this salvation is come but you cast it behind your backs The fiercest vengeance the severest punishments are reserved for wicked Christians and what can we imagine shall be the just portion of those whom neither the condescension and kindness nor wounds and sufferings of the Son of God could persuade nor yet the excellency easiness and profitableness of his commands invite nor the promises of unexpressible rewards allure nor the threatnings of eternal punishment engage to live and be happy In vain therefore do such come hither to celebrate the memory of Christ's birth They of all men who despise this great salvation purchased by the Son of God have no great cause to rejoyce this day nay happy had it been for them who still persist in their sins notwithstanding all that Christ hath done to save them from them if this holy Jesus had never been born 3. Lastly Let us all improve this present opportunity to return our most humble praises and thanksgivings for so great and unvaluable a blessing and to join our voices as well as we are able with those bright Seraphims and that heavenly Host that attended and celebrated Christ's nativity when the Heavens proclaimed his birth with their loud shouts of joy saying Glory be to God in the highest on earth peace good-will towards men Blessed be God for ever blessed be his holy name who hath found out a way for our deliverance and hath raised up for us a mighty salvation that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life Praise therefore the Lord O our souls and all that is within us praise his holy name and forget not all his benefits who forgiveth all our iniquities and healeth all our diseases who hath redeemed our life from destruction and hath crowned us with loving-kindness and tender mercies What shall we now return what do we not owe to him who came down from his imperial Throne and infinitely debasing himself and eclipsing the brightness of his glorious Majesty became a servant nay a curse for our sakes to advance our estate and to raise us to a participation of his divine nature and his eternal glory and bliss To him therefore let us now all offer up our selves our souls and bodies and spirits and that not onely to be saved by him but to be ruled and governed by him and
this he will take as a better expression of our gratitude than if we spent never so many days in verbal praises and acknowledgments of his love and bounty Let us all open our hearts and breasts to receive and entertain this great friend of mankind this glorious lover of our souls and suffer him to take full possession of them and there to place his throne and to reign within us without any rival or competitour and let us humbly beg of him that he would be pleased to finish that work in us which he came into the world about that by his bloud he would cleanse and wash us from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit that he would save us from our sins here and then we need not fear his saving us from everlasting destruction hereafter Which God of his infinite mercy grant to us all for the alone sake of our blessed Lord and Redeemer to whom with the Father c. A SERMON Preached on ASH-WEDNESDAY The Tenth Sermon St. MARK VI. 12. And they went out and preached that men should repent THOUGH repentance be a duty never out of season nay is indeed the work and business of our whole lives all of us being obliged every day to amend yet there are some particular times wherein we are more especially called upon to review our actions to humble our souls in God's presence to bewail our manifold transgressions and to devote our selves afresh to his service such are times of affliction either personal or publick when extraordinary judgments are abroad in the earth or are impendent over us or when we our selves are visited with any sickness or grievous calamity so also before we receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper we are then more strictly to examine our selves and renew our vows and resolutions of living better And to name no more the Church in all ages hath thought fit to set a-part some solemn times to call upon men more earnestly to repent and to seek God's face before it be too late such were the fasting-days before the feast of the resurrection or Easter and accordingly our Church as you have heard in the exhortation this day read to you doth at this time especially move us to earnest and true repentance that we should return unto our Lord God with all contrition and meekness of heart bewailing and lamenting our sinfull lives acknowledging and confessing our offences and seeking to bring forth worthy fruits of penance And such as now seriously set themselves to repent of all the sins they have committed using such abstinence as is necessary for the subduing the flesh to the spirit do certainly keep Lent far better than they who for so long time onely scrupulously abstain from all flesh and call filling themselves with the choicest fish sweet-meats and wine fasting I shall at this time suppose you sufficiently instructed in the nature of repentance it being one of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ as the Apostle to the Hebrews calls it Heb. 6.1 and also that you will readily acknowledge the indispensible necessity of it in order to the obtaining the pardon of your sins and eternal life and that which I now design is onely to set before you some if not the main hindrances and impediments that keep men from repentance and to endeavour to remove them and I shall discourse in order of these three of the many that might be mentioned I. Want of consideration II. The unsuccesfulness of some former attempts when men have resolved and begun to reform but have soon found all their good purposes and endeavours blasted and defeated this discourageth them from making any farther trials III. The hopes of long life and some better opportunity of repenting hereafter One of these is commonly the ground and cause of those mens remaining in an impenitent state who yet are convinced of the absolute necessity of repentance in order to their peace and happiness I. Want of consideration For could men but once be persuaded seriously and in good earnest as becometh reasonable creatures to consider their ways and actions patiently to attend to the dictates of their own minds and soberly to weigh the reasons and consequences of things their is no doubt to be made but Religion would every day gain more proselytes vertue and righteousness would prosper and flourish more in the world and men would soon become ashamed and afraid of nothing so much as vice and wickedness Of such infinite moment are the matters of Religion so mighty and strong are the arguments which it propounds to us so clear and convincing are the evidences it gives us of its truth and certainty so agreeable to our minds are all its principles so amiable and excellent its precepts so pleasant and advantageous is the practice of them that there seemeth nothing farther required to make all men in love with it but onely that they would open their eyes to behold its beauty that they would not stop their ears against all its most alluring charms Let men but once throughly ponder the folly and mischief of sin with the benefits and rewards of piety and an holy life let them but compare their several interests together and look sometimes beyond things present unto that state wherein they are to live for ever and use their understandings about these matters as they do about other affairs and it is impossible they should enjoy any tolerable peace or ease without a carefull and strict provision for another world Vice oweth its quiet possession of mens minds onely to their stupidity and inadvertency to their carelesness and inconsideration it reigns undisturbedly onely in ignorant secure unthinking spirits but streight loseth all its force and power when once men begin to look about them and bethink themselves what they are doing and whither they are going Could we but once gain thus much of wicked men to make a stand and pause a little and to cease but a while from the violent pursuit of their pleasures and fairly reflect upon their lives and see what is the fruit of all their past follies and consider the end and issue of these things could we I say but obtain thus much we might spare most of our pains spent in persuading them to repent their own thoughts would never suffer them to be in quiet till they had done it Let us but once begin to deliberate and examine and we are sure on which side the advantage will lie sin and wickedness can never stand a trial let our own reasons be but judges it hates nothing so much as to be brought to the light A vitious man however he may brave it in the world yet can never justify or approve himself to his own free thoughts and however he may plead for sin before others yet he can never answer the objections his own conscience would bring against it would he but once dare impartially to consider them But the misery of wicked men is that they
unmixt from the dust of other bodies be all disposed into the same order figure and posture they were before so as to make the very self-same flesh and bloud which his soul at his dissolution forsook This seems a Camel too big for any considering person to swallow he must be of a very easie faith who can digest such impossibilities Ezekiel indeed when the hand of the Lord was upon him and he was carried out in the spirit of the Lord thought he was set down in the midst of a valley full of dry bones and that afterwards he heard a noise and behold a shaking and the bones came together bone to his bone the sinews and the flesh came up upon them and the skin covered them above and the breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet This may pass well enough in a Prophetical Vision and did handsomely represent the wonderfull restauration of the Jewish People But that all this and much more should in truth come to pass that our bones after they are resolved into dust should really become living men that all the little atoms whereof our bodies consisted howsoever scattered or wheresoever lodged should immediately at a general summons rally and meet again and every one challenge and possess its own proper place till at last the whole ruined fabrick be perfectly rebuilt and that of the very self-same stuff and materials whereof it consisted before its fall that this I say should ever really be effected is such an incredible thing that it seems to be above the power of reason so much as to frame a conception of it And therefore we may observe that the Gentiles did most especially boggle at this Article of our Christian faith as we reade in the 17th of the Acts when St. Paul preached unto the Athenians concerning the resurrection of the dead the Philosophers mocked at him and entertained his doctrine with nothing but scoffs and flouts and indeed it was one of the last things that the Heathens received into their belief and it is to this day the chiefest objection against Christianity How are the dead raised up and with what body do they come In my discourse of these words I shall doe these three things I. I shall shew that the resurrection of the dead even in the strictest sense as it is commonly understood and explained of the very self-same body that died and was buried contains nothing in it impossible or incredible II. Since it is certain that the body which we shall rise with though it may be as to substance the same with our terrestrial body yet will be so much altered and changed in its modes and qualities that it will be quite another kind of body from what it was before I shall give you a short account of the difference the Scripture makes between a glorified body and this mortal flesh And III. Lastly I shall draw some practical inferences from the whole I. I shall shew that the resurrection of the dead even in the strictest sense as it is commonly understood and explained of the very self-same body that died and was buried contains nothing in it impossible or incredible Whether this strict sense of the Article be the true or not I think I need not determine it is sufficient for me to shew that if this be the true sense of it yet the Atheist or Sceptick hath nothing considerable to object against it but what is capable of a fair and easie answer However give me leave just to lay before you some of the principal reasons and Scriptures upon which it is built and established And 1. I think it must be acknowledged that this hath been all along the most common received opinion amongst Christians that at the last day we shall rise again with the very same flesh with which we are clothed in this state and which we put off at our death and that our heavenly bodies will not onely consist of the same substance and matter with our earthly but will be of the same consistency and modification perfect flesh and bloud though in some properties altered and changed Most of the ancient Fathers of the Church excepting some few that were of a more inquisitive temper and philosophical genius than the rest as Origen and some others did believe and teach that at the general resurrection men should he restored to the very same bodies which they dwelt in here and which at last were laid in the grave that their bodies should be then as truly the same with those they died in as the bodies of those whom our Saviour raised when he was upon earth were the same with those they had before that no other body should be raised but that which slept and that as our Saviour Christ arose with his former flesh and bones and members so we also after the resurrection should have the same members we now use the same flesh and bloud and bones And that this was the common belief and expectation of all Christians in the primitive times that they should appear again at the general resurrection with the very same bodies they lived in here on earth will appear from that spite and malice which the Heathens sometimes shewed to the dead bodies of Christians reducing them to ashes and then scattering them into the air or throwing them into rivers that thereby they might defeat and deprive them of all hopes of a resurrection of this Eusebius gives us an eminent instance out of the Epistle of the Churches of Vienna and Lyons in France to those in Asia and Phrygia under the Persecution of Antoninus Verus which gives an account how that the Heathens after many vain and fruitless attempts to suppress the Christian Religion by inflicting the cruelest torments on the Professours of it which they bravely endured looking for a joyfull resurrection at last thought of a way to deprive them as they fondly imagined of that great hope which ministred so much joy and courage to them under the severest trials which was by reducing the wrackt and mangled bodies of the several Martyrs into the minutest Atoms and then scattering them in the great River Rhodanus Let us now say they see whether they can rise again and whether their God can help them and deliver them out of our hands Now this is a sufficient intimation to us that it was then the known common opinion of Christians that the very same body and flesh which suffered and was martyred here on earth should be raised again at the last day And indeed those amongst the Ancient Christians who have undertaken to defend or explain this Article of the resurrection of the dead do it mostly by such principles arguments and illustrations as do suppose the very same body and flesh and members to be raised again which the soul animated here in this life 2. This hath not onely been the common received opinion of Christians but also the most plain and easie notion of
a resurrection seems to require it namely that the very same body which died should be raised again Nothing dies but the body nothing is corrupted but the body the soul goeth upward and returns to God and therefore nothing else can be properly said to be raised again but onely that very body which died and was corrupted If God give to our souls at the last day a new body this cannot literally be called the resurrection of our bodies because here is no reproduction of the same thing that was before which seems to be plainly implied in the word resurrection Indeed the word is sometimes used otherwise as when a House or Temple that hath been consumed by fire is rebuilt on the same ground where it formerly stood this is often though improperly and figuratively called the resurrection of it and after the same manner do the Latines use the word resurgere but yet the most proper and literal signification of the word resurrection is that the same flesh which was separated from the soul at the day of death should be again vitally united to it 3. There are many places of Scripture which in their strict and literal meaning do seem plainly to favour this sense of the Article that the very same flesh shall be raised again what more plain and express saith St. Hierome than that of Job Job 19.26 27. Though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self and my eyes shall behold and not another But however plain these words may seem to be yet I cannot think that the primary and original meaning of them doth at all relate to the resurrection nor were they ever so understood and interpreted by the Jews as Grotius tells us not but that they might be prophetical of it and so by way of accommodation may be fitly applied to it but the first and most easie sense of the words seems to be this After my skin is consumed let that which remains of me likewise by piecemeals be destroyed yet I am confident that before I die with these very eyes I shall see my Redeemer and be restored by him to my former happy state So that the words are a plain prophecy of his own deliverance and an high expression of his confident hope in God that in time he would vindicate his innocence and bring him out of all his troubles But if this place will not hold there are others in the New Testament of the same importance St. Paul in the 53d verse of this Chapter speaking of our body and the glorious change it shall undergo at the resurrection tells us that this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality now by this corruptible and this mortal can onely be meant that body which we now carry about with us and shall one day lay down in the dust Thus also the same Apostle tells us Rom. 8.11 He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies Now that which shall be quickned and raised to life again can be nothing else but that very body of flesh which is mortal and died though there is some question to be made whether the quickning our mortal bodies by the spirit of Christ dwelling in us should not rather be understood in a metaphorical or moral sense of the first resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness than of the general resurrection at the consummation of all things But farther the mention and description the Scripture makes of the places from whence the dead shall rise doth seem plainly to intimate that the same bodies which were dead shall revive again Thus we reade in Daniel Ch. 12. v. 2. That those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting death Where we may yet farther observe that the Metaphor of sleeping and awaking by which our death and resurrection is here expressed doth seem to imply that when we rise again our bodies will be as much the same with those we lived in as they are when we awake the same with those we had before we laid our selves down to sleep Thus again it is said in St. John's Gospel Chap. 5. verses 28 and 29. The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation And in the Revelations Chap. 20. verse 13. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell that is the grave delivered up the dead that were in them and they were judged every man according to their works Now if the same flesh shall not be raised again what need is there of ransacking the graves at the end of the word the Sea can give up no other bodies but the same which it received in nor can the Grave deliver up any but onely those that were laid therein if it were not necessary that we should rise with the very same bodies the graves need not be opened but our flesh might be permitted to rest there for ever To this may be added that St. Paul tells us in the 3d Chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians verse 21. that our Saviour shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body Now this vile body can be no other than this flesh and bloud which we are now cloathed with restored to life again 4. If we consider the several instances and examples either of those who did immediately ascend up into Heaven or of those who after death were restored to life again they all seem plainly to confirm this opinion that at the last day we shall rise again with the very same flesh and bloud which we had here Enoch and Elias of old were translated into Heaven in their terrestrial bodies and therefore may be supposed now to live there with the same flesh and parts they had when they were here upon earth And those three that were raised from the dead in the Old Testament and those that were recalled to life by our Saviour or accompanied him at his resurrection all appeared again in the very same bodies they had before their dissolution and these were examples and types of the general resurrection and therefore our resurrection must resemble theirs and we also must appear at the last day with the same bodies we lived in here Even our blessed Saviour himself who was the first fruits of them that slept did raise his own body according to that prediction of his Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it up again Nay he appeared to his Disciples with the very prints of the nails in his hands and feet and with all the other marks of his crucifixion Behold my hands and my
feet says he that it is I my self Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have from whence it seems to follow that we in our resurrection shall be conformable to our Saviour and resume the very same bodies that were laid in the Sepulchre 5. And Lastly It is farther urged by some of the Ancients for a proof of the resurrection of the same body that the exact justice and righteousness of God doth require it that God's justice I mean that which consists in the equal dispensation of rewards and punishments will seem to be much obscured at least will not be so illustriously manifested and displayed to the world unless the same body of flesh be raised again that so that which was here the constant partner with the soul in all her actions whether good or evil may also hereafter share with her in her rewards or punishments It seems but equal that we should be punished in the same body in which we sinned and that that very flesh in which we pleased God should be exalted and glorified at the last day and receive a just recompence of reward for all the trouble and hardship it underwent in this life Thus I have given you a brief account of this strictest sense of the Article of the Resurrection namely that the very self-same lesh and bloud which make up our bodies here on earth shall be raised again at the last day and after it hath been changed and glorified by the power and spirit of Christ I speak onely of the bodies of good men shall ascend up into Heaven and there live and dwell for ever in the presence of God I come now to shew that there is nothing in all this impossible or incredible which I shall do by proving these three things 1. That it is possible for God to observe and distinguish and preserve unmixt from all other bodies the particular dust and atoms into which the several bodies of men are dissolved and to recollect and unite them together how far soever dispersed asunder 2. That God can form that dust so recollected together of which the body did formerly consist into the same body it was before And 3. That when he hath made this body he can enliven it and make it the same living man by uniting it to the same soul and spirit that used formerly to inhabit there It cannot be denied but that these three things do express the whole of the resurrection of our flesh in the strictest sense and none of these are impossible 1. God can observe and distinguish and preserve unmixt from all other bodies the particular dust and atoms into which the several bodies of men are dissolved and recollect and unite them together how far soever dispersed asunder God is infinite in wisedom power and knowledge he knoweth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their names he measures the waters in the hollow of his hand and metes out the heavens with a span and comprehends the dust of the earth in a measure he numbers the hairs of our head and not so much as a sparrow falls to the ground without his knowledge he can tell the number of the sands of the Seashore as the Heathens used to express the immensity of his knowledge and is it at all incredible that such an infinite understanding should distinctly know the several particles of dust into which the bodies of men are mouldred and plainly discern to whom they belong and observe the various changes they undergo in their passage through several bodies Why should it be thought strange that he who at first formed us whose eyes did see our substance yet being imperfect and in whose book all our members were written from whom our substance was not hid when we were made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth should know every part of our bodies and every atome whereof they are composed The curious artist knows every pin and part of the Watch or Machine which he frames and if the little Engine should fall in pieces and all the parts of it lie in the greatest disorder and confusion yet he can soon rally them together and as easily distinguish one from another as if every one had its particular mark he knows the use of every part can readily assign to each its proper place and exactly dispose them into the same figure and order they were in before and can we think that the Almighty Architect of the world whose workmanship we are doth not know whereof we are made or is not acquainted with the several parts and materials of which this earthly tabernacle of ours is framed and composed The several corporeal beings that now constitute this Universe at the first creation of the world lay all confused in a vast heap of rude and indigested Chaos till by the voice of the Omnipotent they were separated one from the other and framed into those distinct bodies whereof this beautifull and orderly world doth consist and why may not the same power at the consummation of all things out of the ruines and rubbish of the world collect the several reliques of our corrupted bodies reduce them each to their proper places and restore them to their primitive shapes and figures and frame them into the same individual bodies they were parts of before All the atoms and particles into which mens bodies are at last dissolved however they may seem to us to lie carelesly scattered over the face of the earth yet are safely lodged by God's wise disposal in several receptacles and repositories till the day of restitution of all things in aquis in ignibus in alitibus in bestiis saith Tertullian they are preserved in the waters in birds and beasts till the sound of the last trumpet shall summon them and recall them all to their former habitations But the chiefest and most usual objection against what I am now pleading for is this That it may sometimes happen that several mens bodies may consist of the very self-same matter for the bodies of men are oftentimes devoured by beasts and fishes and other animals and the flesh of these is afterwards eaten by other men and becomes part of their nourishment till at last the same particles of matter come to belong to several bodies and it is impossible that at the resurrection they should be united to them all Or to express it shorter it is reported of some whole Nations that they devour the bodies of other men and feed upon humane flesh so that these must necessarily borrow great part of their bodies of other men and if that which was part of one man's body comes afterwards to be part of another man's how can both rise at the last day with the very self-same bodies they had here But to this it may be easily replied that but a very small and inconsiderable part of that which is eaten and descends into the
stomach turns into nourishment the far greater part goes away by excretions and perspirations So that it is not at all impossible but that God Almighty who watcheth over all things by his providence and governs them by his power may so order the matter that what is really part of one man's body though eaten by another yet shall never come to be part of his nourishment or else if it doth nourish him and consequently becomes part of his body that it shall wear off again and sometime before his death be divided and separated from it that so it may remain in a condition to be restored to him who first laid it down in the dust And the like may be said of Men-eaters if any such there be that God by his wise providence may take care either that they shall not be at all nourished by other mens flesh which they so inhumanely devour or if they be nourished by it and some particles of matter which formerly belonged to other men be adopted into their bodies yet that they shall yield them up again before they die that they may be in a capacity of being restored at the last day to their right owners But perhaps it may seem to some unworthy of God and beneath his divine Majesty to attend to such little things and to concern himself about such mean and trivial matters or inconsistent with his ease and happiness to trouble himself with such a perplext and intricate business as curiously to mark and observe all the particles of dust into which the several bodies of men are dissolved and exactly to distinguish one from another and to preserve them entire and unmixt and at last to restore them all to their old bodies But such persons should have a care lest under pretence of pleading for God's honour and glory they really lessen him and derogate from all his other perfections It is the great excellency and perfection of the divine providence that it extends it self to all even to the least things and that nothing is exempted from its care and influence And to fansie that to govern the world is a burthen to God is surely to entertain mean and unworthy conceptions of him and to judge of him by the same rules and measures we do of our selves It is very unreasonable because we are of such weak and frail natures as that a little business and employment presently tires us to think the same of God Almighty as if it were any trouble to him or at all interrupted his infinite pleasure and happiness to take care of the world and order and manage the several affairs of it 2. Of this dust thus preserved and collected together God can easily re-make and rebuild the very same bodies which were dissolved And that this is possible must be acknowledged by all that believe the history of the creation of the world that God formed the first man Adam of the dust of the ground if the body of man be dust after death it is no other than what it was originally and the same power that at first made it of dust may as easily re-make it when it is reduced into the same dust again Nay this is no more wonderfull than the formation of an humane body in the womb which is a thing that we have daily experience of which without doubt is as great a miracle and as strange an instance of the divine power as the resurrection of it can possibly be and were it not so common and usual a thing we should as hardly be brought to believe it possible that such a beautifull fabrick as the body of a man is with nerves and bones and flesh and veins and bloud and the several other parts whereof it consists should be raised out of those principles of which we see it is made as now we are that hereafter it should be rebuilt when it is crumbled into dust Had we onely heard or read of the wonderfull formation of the body of man we should have been as ready to ask how are men made and with what bodies are they born as now we are when we hear of the resurrection How are the dead raised up and with what bodies do they come 3. When God hath raised again the same body out of the dust into which it was dissolved he can enliven it and make it the same living man by uniting it to the same soul and spirit which used formerly to inhabit there And this we cannot with the least shew of reason pretend impossible to be done because we must grant that it hath been already often done We have several undoubted examples of it in those whom the Prophets of old and our blessed Saviour and his Apostles raised from the dead Nay our Saviour himself after he was dead and buried rose again and appeared alive unto his Disciples and others and was sufficiently known and owned by those who had accompanied him and conversed with him for many years together and that not presently but after long doubting and hesitation upon undeniable conviction and proof that he was the very same person they had seen expiring upon the Cross Thus I have endeavoured to shew you that in the strictest notion of the resurrection there is nothing that is absurd or impossible or above the power of such an infinite being as God is The onely thing I know of that can with any pretence of reason be objected against what I have discoursed upon this head is this that this way of arguing from God's omnipotency is very fallacious and hath been often much abused for under this pretence that nothing is impossible to an infinits power all the Rabbinical and Mahumetan Fables or which are as incredible all the Popish Legends may be obtruded on us for Anthentick Histories since there is nothing contained in them that is absolutely above or beyond God's power to effect if he pleases to exert it Whence some of the Fathers have observed that the Omnipotency of God was the great sanctuary of Hereticks to which they always betook themselves when they were baffled by reason And indeed so much is certainly true that God's Omnipotency alone is no good argument to prove the truth of any thing for without doubt there are an infinite number of things which are possible to be done or made which yet God in his infinite wisedom never thought fit to exercise his power about nor perhaps ever will and therefore we ought not to conclude because God can raise us again with the very same bodies we have here that therefore he will doe so But supposing that God hath expresly revealed and declared that he will doe it from the consideration of his infinite power we are bound however impossible it may seem to us so long as it doth not plainly imply a contradiction not to doubt of the truth of it but firmly to believe that he that hath promised can also perform We must first therefore be assured that it is
the will of God to raise again the same flesh which was laid in the grave and then we may safely have recourse to the Omnipotency of God to confirm and establish our faith of it I conclude this head therefore with that question of St. Paul's Acts 26.8 Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead The change from death to life is not so great as that from nothing into being and if we believe that God Almighty by the word of his power at first made the heavens and the earth of no pre-existent matter what reason have we to doubt but that the same God by that mighty power whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself can also raise to life again those who were formerly alive and have not yet wholly ceased to be And though we cannot answer all the difficulties and objections which the wit of men whose interest it is that their souls should die with their bodies and both perish together hath found out to puzzle this doctrine with though we cannot fully satisfy our minds and reasons about the manner how it shall be done or the nature of those bodies we shall rise with yet this ought not in the least to shake or weaken our belief of this most important Article of our Christian faith Is it not sufficient that an Almighty Being with whom nothing is impossible hath solemnly promised and past his word that he will re-animate and re-enliven our mortal bodies and after death raise us to life again Let those who presume to mock at this glorious hope and expectation of all good men and are continually exposing this doctrine and raising objections against it first try their skill upon the ordinary and daily appearances of nature which they have every day before their eyes let them rationally solve and explain every thing that happens in this world of which themselves are witnesses before they think to move us from the belief of the resurrection by raising some dust and difficulties about it when Omnipotency it self stands engaged for the performance of it Can they tell me how their own bodies were framed and fashioned and curiously wrought Can they give me a plain and satisfactory account by what orderly steps and degrets this glorious and stately structure consisting of so many several parts and members which discovers so much delicate workmanship and rare contrivance was at first erected How was the first drop of bloud made and how came the heart and veins and arteries to receive and contain it of what and by what means were the nerves and fibres made what fixt those little strings in their due places and situations and fitted and adapted them for those several uses for which they serve what distinguisht and separated the brain from the other parts of the body and placed it in the head and filled it with animal spirits to move and animate the whole body How came the body to be fenced with bones and sinews to be cloathed with skin and flesh distinguisht into various muscles let them but answer me these and all the other questions I could put to them about the formation of their own body and then I will willingly undertake to solve all the objections and difficulties that they can raise concerning the resurrection of it But if they cannot give any account of the formation of that body they now live in but are forced to have recourse to the infinite power and wisedom of the first cause the great and sovereign orderer and disposer of all things let them know that the same power is able also to quicken and enliven it again after it is rotted and returned unto dust we must believe very few things if this be a sufficient reason for our doubting of any thing that there are some things belonging to it which we cannot perfectly comprehend or give a rational account of In this state our conceptions and reasonings about the things that belong to the future and invisible world are very childish and vain and we do but guess and talk at random whenever we venture beyond what God hath revealed to us Let us not therefore perplex and puzzle our selves with those difficulties which have been raised concerning this doctrine of the resurrection for it is no absurdity to suppose that an infinite power may effect such things as seem wholly impossible to such finite beings as we are but rather let us hold fast to what is plainly revealed concerning it namely that all those who love and fear God shall be raised again after death the fame men they were before and live for ever with God in unspeakable happiness both of body and soul Thus I have endeavoured to shew the possbility of a resurrection in the strictest sense I now proceed to the second thing I propounded which was II. Since it is certain that the body we shall rise with though it may be as to substance the same with our terrestrial body yet will be so altered and changed in its modes and qualities that it will be quite another kind of body from what it was before To give you a short account of the difference the Scripture makes between a glorified body and this mortal flesh But before I doe this I shall premise this one thing that all our conceptions of the future state are yet very dark and imperfect We are sufficiently assured that we shall all after death be alive again the very same men and persons we were here and that those that have done good shall receive glory and honour and eternal life But the nature of that joy and happiness which is provided for us in the other world is not so plainly revealed this we know that it vastly surpasses all our imaginations and that we are not able in this imperfect state to fansie or conceive the greatness of it we have not words big enough fully to express it or if it were described to us our understandings are too short and narrow to comprehend it And therefore the Scriptures from which alone we have all we know of a future state describe it either first negatively by propounding to us the several evils and inconveniences we shall then be totally freed from or else secondly by comparing the glory that shall then be revealed with those things which men do most value and admire here whence it is called an inheritance a kingdom a throne a crown a sceptre a rich treasure a river of pleasures a splendid robe and an exceeding and eternal weight of glory All which do not signify to us the strict nature of that happiness which is promised us in another world which doth not consist in any outward sensible joys or pleasures But these being the best and greatest things which this world can bless us with which men do ordinarily most admire and value and covet the possession of are made use of to set out to us the transcendent blessedness of
another life though indeed it is quite of another kind and infinitely greater than the greatest worldly happiness These are onely little comparisons to help our weak apprehensions and childish fancies but we shall never truly and fully know the glories of the other world till we come to enjoy them It doth not yet appear what we shall be from the description which the Scripture gives of the other world as from a Map of an unknown Countrey we may frame in our minds a rude confused idea and conception of it and from thence as Moses from the top of Mount Pisgah may take some little imperfect prospect of the land of promise but we shall never have a complete notion of it till we our selves are entred into it However so much of our future happiness is revealed to us as may be sufficient to raise our thoughts and affections above the empty shadows and fading beauties and flattering glories of this lower world to make us sensible how mean and trifling our present joys and fatisfactions are and to excite and engage our best and most hearty endeavours towards the attainment of it whatever difficulties and discouragements we may meet with in this life though all that can be said or we can possibly know of it comes infinitely short of what one day we shall feel and perceive and be really possessed of Having premised this I come to consider what change shall be wrought in our bodies at the resurrection which is no small part of our future happiness now this change according to the account the Scriptures give of it will consist chiefly in these four things 1. That our bodies shall be raised immortal and incorruptible 2. that they shall be raised in glory 3. that they shall be raised in power 4. that they shall be raised spiritual bodies All which properties of our glorified bodies are mentioned by St. Paul in this Chapter verses 42 43 44. So also is the resurrection of the dead It is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory It is sown in weakness it is raised in power It is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body And the explication of these words will give us the difference between the glorified body which we shall have in Heaven and that mortal flesh and vile earth which we are now burthened with 1. The bodies which we shall have at the resurrection will be immortal and incorruptible verse 53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality Now these words immortal and incorruptible do not onely signify that we shall die no more for in that sense the bodies of the damned are also raised immortal and incorruptible since they must live for ever though it be in intolerable pain and misery but they denote farther a perfect freedom from all those bodily evils which sin hath brought into the world and from whatever is penal afflictive or uneasie to us that our bodies shall not be subject to pain or diseases or those other inconveniences to which they are now daily obnoxious This is called in Scripture the redemption of our bodies the freeing them from all those evils and maladies which they are here subject unto Were we at the general resurrection to receive the same bodies again subject to those frailties and miseries which in this state we are forced to wrestle with I much doubt whether a wise considering person were it left to his choice would willingly take it again whether he would not chuse to let it lie still rotting in the grave rather than consent to be again fettered down and bound fast to all eternity to such a cumbersome clod of earth such a resurrection as this would indeed be what Plotinus calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resurrection to another sleep it would look more like a condemnation to death again than a resurrection to life The best thing that we can say of this earthly house and tabernacle of clay the tomb and sepulchre of our souls is that it is a ruinous building and it will not be long before it be dissolved and tumble into dust that it is not our home or resting place but that we look for another house not made with hands eternal in the heavens that we shall not always be confined to this dolefull prison but that in a little time we shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption and being disengaged and set free from this burthen of flesh shall be admitted into the glorious liberty of the children of God Alas what frail and brittle things are these bodies of ours How soon are they disordered and discomposed To what a troop of diseases pains and other infirmities are they continually liable And how doth the least distemper or weakness disturb and annoy our minds interrupt our ease and rest and make life it self a burthen to us of how many several parts and members do our bodies consist and if any one of these be disordered the whole man suffers with it If but one of those slender veins or tender membranes or little nerves and fibres whereof our flesh is made up be either contracted or extended beyond its due proportion or obstructed or corroded by any sharp humour or broken what torment and anguish doth it create How doth it pierce our souls with grief and pain Nay when our bodies are at their best what pains do we take to what drudgeries are we forced to submit to serve their necessities to provide for their sustenance and supply their wants to repair their decays to preserve them in health and to keep them tenantable in some tolerable plight and fitness for the soul's use We pass away our days with labour and sorrow in mean and servile employments and are continually busying our selves about such trifling matters as are beneath a rational and immortal spirit to stoop to or be solicitous about And all this onely to supply our selves with food and raiment and other conveniences for this mortal life and to make provision for this vile contemptible flesh that it may want nothing that it craves or desires And what time we can spare from our labour is taken up in resting and refreshing our tired and jaded bodies and giving them such recruits as are necessary to fit them for work again and restore them to their former strength and vigour How are we forced every night to enter into the confines of death even to cease to be at least to pass away so many hours without any usefull or rational thoughts onely to keep these carkasses in repair and make them fit to undergo the drudgeries of the enfuing day In a word so long as these frail weak and dying bodies subject to so many evils and inconvemences both from within and without are so closely linkt and united to our souls that not so much as any one part of them can suffer but our souls must
be affected with it it is impossible that we should enjoy much ease or rest or happiness in this life when it is in the power of so many thousand contingencies to rob us of it But our hope and comfort is that the time will shortly come when we shall be delivered from this burthen of flesh When God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away When we shall hunger no more neither thirst any more neither shall the sun light on us nor any heat for the lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed us and shall lead us into living fountains of waters Oh when shall we arrive to those happy regions where no complaints were ever heard where we shall all enjoy a constant and uninterrupted health and vigour both of body and mind and never more be exposed to pinching frosts or scorching heats or any of those inconveniences which incommode this present pilgrimage When we have once passed from death to life we shall be perfectly eased of all that troublesome care of our bodies which now takes up so much of our time and thoughts we shall be set free from all those tiresome labours and servile drudgeries which here we are forced to undergo for the maintenance and support of our lives and shall enjoy a perfect health without being vexed with any nauseous medicines or tedious courses of physick for the preservation of it Those robes of light and glory which we shall be cloathed with at the resurrection of the just will not stand in need of those carefull provisions or crave those satisfactions which it is so grievous to us here either to procure or be without But they as our Saviour tells us St. Luke 20. verse 35 36. which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage neither can they die any more for they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to Angels they shall live such a life as the holy Angels do Whence Tertullian calls the body we shall have at the resurrection carnem Angelificatam Angelified flesh which shall neither be subject to those weaknesses and decays nor want that daily sustenance and continual recruit which these mortal bodies cannot subsist without Meats for the belly and the belly for meats but God shall destroy both it and them This is that perfect and complete happiness which all good men shall enjoy in the other world which according to an Heathen Poet may be thus briefly summed up Mens sana in corpore sano a mind free from all trouble and guilt in a body free from all pains and diseases Thus our mortal bodies shall be raised immortal they shall not onely by the power of God be always preserved from death for so the bodies we have now if God pleases may become immortal but the nature of them shall be so wholly changed and altered that they shall not retain the same seeds or principles of mortality and corruption so that they who are once cloathed with them as our Saviour tells us cannot die any more 2. Our bodies shall be raised in glory Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father Matt. 13.43 Our heavenly bodies in brightness and glory shall contend with the splendour of the Sun it self A resemblance of this we have in the lustre of Moses's face which after he had conversed with God in the Mount did shine so gloriously that the children of Israel were afraid to come near him and therefore when he spake to them he was forced to cast a veil over his face to cloud and eclipse the glory of it And that extraordinary and miraculous majesty of St. Stephen's countenance seems to be a presage of that future glory which our heavenly bodies shall be cloathed with Acts 6.15 And all that sate in the Council looking stedfastly on him saw his face as it had been the face of an Angel That is they saw a great light and splendour about him and if the bodies of Saints do sometimes appear so glorious here on earth how will they shine and glitter in the other world when they shall be made like unto Christ's own glorious body for so St. Paul tells us that Christ will fashion our vile bodies like unto his glorious body Now how glorious and splendid the body of Christ is we may ghess by the visions of the two great Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul The former of them when he saw the transfiguration of our Saviour when his face did shine as the sun and his raiment became shining and white as snow was at the sight of it so transported and overcharged with joy and admiration that he was in a manner besides himself for he knew not what he said When our Saviour discovered but a little of that glory which he now possesses and will in due time communicate to his followers yet that little of it made the place seem a paradise and the Disciples were so taken with the sight of it that they thought they could wish for nothing better than always to live in such pure light and enjoy so beautifull a sight It is good for us to be here let us make three tabernacles here let us fix and abide for ever And if they thought this so great a happiness onely to be where such heavenly bodies were present and to behold them with their eyes how much greater happiness must they enjoy who are admitted to dwell in such glorious mansions and are themselves cloathed with so much brightness and splendour The other appearance of our blessed Saviour after his ascension into Heaven to St. Paul as he was travelling to Damascus was so glorious that it put out his eyes his senses were not able to bear a light so refulgent such glorious creatures will our Lord make us all if we continue his faithfull servants and followers and we shall be so wonderfully changed by the word of his power from what we are in this vile state that the bodies we now have will not be able so much as to bear the sight and presence of those bodies which shall be given us at the resurrection Now this excellency of our heavenly bodies the Schoolmen fansie will arise in a great measure from the happiness of our souls The unspeakable joy and happiness which our souls shall then enjoy will break through our bodies and be conspicuous and shine forth in the brightness of our countenances and illustrate them with beauty and splendour as the joy of the soul even in this life hath some influence upon the body and makes an imperfect impression upon the countenance by rendring it more serene and chearfull than otherwise it would be as Solomon tells us Eccles. 8.1 That a man's wisedom maketh his face to shine
Vertue and goodness purifies and exalts a man's natural temper and makes his very looks more clear and brisk 3. Our bodies shall be raised in power This is that which the Schools call the agility of our heavenly bodies the nimbleness of their motion by which they shall be rendred most obedient and able instruments of the soul In this state our bodies are no better than clogs and fetters which confine and restrain the freedom of the soul and hinder it is all her operations The corruptible body as it is in the wisedom of Solomon presseth down the soul and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things Our dull sluggish and unactive bodies are often unable oftner unready and backward to execute the orders and obey the commands of our souls so that they are rather hindrances to the soul than any-ways usefull or serviceable to her But in the other life as the Prophet Isaiah tells us Isaiah 40.31 They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as Eagles they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint or as another expresses it They shall shine and run too and fro like sparks amongst the stubble the speed of their motion shall be like that of devouring fire in an heap of dry stubble and the height of it shall surpass the towring flight of the Eagle for they shall meet the Lord in the air when he comes to judgment and afterwards mount up with him into the third and highest Heavens This earthly body is continually groveling on the ground slow and heavy in all its motions listless and soon tired with action and the soul that dwells in it is forced as it were to drag and hale it along but our heavenly bodies shall be as free as active and nimble as our very thoughts are 4. And Lastly Our bodies shall be raised spiritual bodies not of a spiritual substance for then the words would imply a contradiction it being impossible that the same thing should be both a spiritual and a bodily substance But spiritual is here opposed not to corporeal but to natural or animal and by it is exprest as it is ordinarily interpreted the subtilty and tenuity and purity of our heavenly bodies But I would rather explain it thus In this state our spirits are forced to serve our bodies and to attend their leisure and do mightily depend upon them in most of their operations but on the contrary in the other world our bodies shall wholly serve our spirits and minister unto them and depend upon them So that by a natural body I understand a body fitted for this lower and sensible world for this earthly state by a spiritual body such an one as is suited and accommodated to a spiritual state to an invisible world to such a life as the Saints and Angels lead in Heaven And indeed this is the principal difference between this mortal body and our glorified body This flesh which now we are so apt to dote upon is one of the greatest and most dangerous enemies we have and therefore is defied and renounced by all Christians in their baptism as well as the world and the Devil It continually tempts and solicits us to evil every sense is a snare to us and all its lusts and appetites are inordinate and insatiable it is impatient of Christ's yoke and refuseth discipline it is ungovernable and often rebelleth against reason and the law in our members warreth against the law of our minds and brings us into captivity to the law of sin which is in our members and when the spirit is willing the flesh is weak so that the best men are forced to keep it under and use it hardly lest it should betray them into folly and misery We are now in a state of warfare and must always be upon our guard and watch continually arming and defending our selves against the assaults of the flesh and all its violent and impetuous motions How doth it hinder us in all our religious devotions How soon doth it jade our minds when employed in any divine or spiritual meditations or how easily by its bewitching and enchanting pleasure doth it divert them from such noble exercises So that St. Paul breaks forth into this sad and mournfull complaint Rom. 7.24 O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Who shall Death shall That shall give us a full and final deliverance When once we have obtained the resurrection unto life we shall not any more feel those lustings of the flesh against the spirit which are here so troublesome and uneasie to us our flesh shall then cease to vex our souls with its evil inclinations immoderate desires and unreasonable passions But being its self spiritualized purified exalted and freed from this earthly grosness and all manner of pollution shall become a most fit and proper instrument of the soul in all her divine and heavenly employments It shall not be weary of singing praises unto God Almighty through infinite Ages It shall want no respite or refreshment but its meat and drink shall be to doe the will of God In these things chiefly consists the difference between those bodies which we shall have at the resurrection and this mortal flesh which we can but very imperfectly either conceive or express but yet from what hath been discoursed on this subject it doth sufficiently appear that a glorified body is infinitely more excellent and desireable than that vile and contemptible flesh which we now carry about with us The onely thing remaining is III. And Lastly to draw some practical inferences from all I have said on this subject I shall but just mention these five and leave the improvement of them to your own private meditations 1. From what I have said we may learn the best way of fitting and preparing our selves to live in those heavenly and spiritual bodies which shall be bestowed upon us at the resurrection which is by cleansing and purifying our souls still more and more from all fleshly filthiness and weaning our selves by degrees from this earthly body and all sensual pleasures and delights We should begin in this life to loosen and untie the knot between our souls and this mortal flesh to refine our affections and raise them from things below to things above to take off our hearts and leisurely to disengage them from things present and sensible and to use and accustome our selves to think of and converse with things spiritual and invisible that so our souls when they are separated from this earthly body may be prepared and disposed to actuate and inform a pure and spiritual one as having before hand tasted and relished spiritual delights and pleasures and been in some degree acquainted with those objects which shall then be presented to us A soul wholly immersed and buried in this earthly body is not at all fit and qualified
it when he was reduced to the meanest condition a man can possibly sink into and such a change is most apt to open the mouths not onely of our own consciences but of all that know us against us I say in this his worst estate neither his own mind nor his friends nor his enemies if so good a man had any could find matter of complaint or reproach against him And this was such a remarkable instance of pure and resolute vertue that God Almighty seemed to rejoice and triumph that he had now found a man who could preserve himself innocent and upright even amidst all the flattering temptations that attend riches and power and worldly greatness Hast thou considered said the Lord unto Satan chap. 1. verse 8. as it were in a boasting manner my servant Job that there is none like him in the earth a perfect and an upright man one that feareth God and escheweth evil but 2. Behold the scene of a sudden quite changed and extreme poverty loss and pain dwelling there where plenty and honour and riches formerly made their abode The great enemy of mankind was at length satisfied that this renowned servant of God was not to be enticed by any of his baits that he had a soul too great to fall in love with the fading beauties and perishing glories of this world and therefore when he saw he would not be moved from his duty by fair means he uses force and violence and sets himself openly to assault that vertue which would not be caught in any of his snares nor yield to any of his gilded temptations And to this end in one day he spirits away all his wealth and servants slays all his children by the fall of an house and exercises such cruelty upon his body that there was nothing about him whole and entire and free from sores but onely the skin of his teeth he arms his own wife and his best friends against him his brethren went far from him his acquaintance were estranged from him his kinsmen failed him and his familiars forgot him the young children despised him those that dwelt in his house counted him for a stranger and those whom he loved most were turned against him But when he was thus abandoned and forsaken of all he yet held fast his righteousness and would not remove his integrity from him he still preserved a good conscience which neither the Sabaeans nor the Chaldaeans nor the Devil himself could rob him of Notwithstanding all these violent attaques of Satan he bravely stood his ground and the greatness of his sufferings served onely to make his courage and constancy still more glorious and illustrious Under all these afflictions he entertained not an unworthy thought never uttered one hard word concerning God but humbly kissed the hand that struck him and received evil things from him with the same gratefull resentment he used to receive good things and was as thankfull for these sad misfortunes and dire calamities as other men are for the greatest favours and blessings And whatever betided him in this world yet he would never fall out with God or doe any thing that might displease him or wound his own mind and conscience Thus this heavenly Champion came off with success and victory and the trial of his faith and patience was found unto praise and honour and glory Now the words thus understood relating in particular to Job as exercised with these various conflicts and temptations afford us these two plain but usefull rules 1. That we should so manage our selves in times of prosperity and so use and improve our worldly advantages of health riches honour authority and the like that whenever we come to be deprived of them our hearts may have nothing to reproach us for 2. That we should never either to prevent or to redeem our selves from any outward evil and calamity doe any thing which our own minds and consciences do disapprove and condemn 1. We should so manage our selves in times of prosperity and so use and improve all worldly advantages of health riches honour authority and the like that whenever we come to be deprived of them our hearts may have nothing to reproach us for It is certain that so long as the world goes on our side and we live in ease and plenty and enjoy whatever our hearts can wish for we have not so quick and lively a sense of good and evil nor do we ordinarily suffer our consciences to speak so freely and plainly to us as when we are under some affliction or distress Whilst we enjoy an uninterrupted prosperity the noise and tumult of the world the hurry and multiplicity of business and secular affairs the variety of sensual pleasures and delights the mirth and jollity of company and the several temporal projects and designs we have in hand do generally so wholly engross and prepossess our thoughts as that they drown the softer whispers of our minds and reasons and allow no time or opportunity to our consciences to doe their office But when once we meet with a sudden check and stop and are brought into straits and difficulties when we are crossed and disappointed and all our fine hopes and expectations are blasted and defeated especially when death and judgment draws nigh then doth conscience take the advantage against us and fly in our faces and set our sins in order before us and fill our minds with galling regrets and misgiving fears and disquieting and uncomfortable reflexions upon our past follies and we soon begin to have quite other notions and apprehensions of things than we had formerly in the days of sunshine and security Thus Joseph's brethren after they had sold him into Egypt and thereby had afflicted their Father's soul even unto death for a long time seemed pleased and satisfied with themselves that they had done no worse to their innocent brother that they had not slain him but afterwards when they found themselves captives in a strange Land they laid their hands upon their breasts and thought more impartially on what they had done and said one to another we are verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear therefore is this distress come upon us When we come to languish upon a bed of sickness our minds will then take the liberty to reproach us for those many days of health and strength which now without any sense or remorse we fondly trifle and squander away Should our riches take to themselves wings and flie away and we all know how slippery and uncertain all these earthly enjoyments are it would then wound us sore to think how much we stretched our consciences to get some part of them and how prodigally we mis-spent other part of them how much we loved them and trusted in them and what an ill use we made of them If ever we our selves should come to stand in need of the help
his own conscience will be sure to come off well at last in the final account and judgment then God will confirm and ratify the sentence of his conscience and publickly own and approve of what he hath done and clear and vindicate his innocency and reward his fidelity and constancy before all the world At that day when all our great undertakers and contrivers of mischief all the cunning practisers of guile and hypocrisie shall lie down in shame when their secret arts and base tricks whereby they imposed on the world shall be detected and proclaimed as it were upon the house-top and all their unworthy projects and designs shall be laid open and naked being stript of those specious pretences they here disguised them with when the hidden things of darkness shall be brought to light and the counsels of all mens hearts shall be made manifest as the noon-day at that day I say the upright and righteous man shall stand in great boldness and shall lift up his head with joy and confidence and then it will appear that he was the best politician and the onely person that either understood or regarded his true interest To conclude all Our consciences are either our best friends or our greatest enemies they are either a continual feast or a very hell to us A conscience well resolved and setled is the greatest comfort of our lives the best antidote against all kind of temptations the most pretious treasure that we can lay up against an evil day and our surest and strongest hold to secure us from all dangers which can never be taken unless through our own folly and negligence But an evil clamorous conscience that is continually twitting and reproaching us is a perpetual wrack and torment it wasts our spirits and preys upon our hearts and eats out the sweetness of all our worldly enjoyments and fills us with horrid fears and ghastly apprehensions this is that knawing worm that never dieth the necessary fruit of sin and guilt and the necessary cause of everlasting anguish and vexation A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL The Thirteenth Sermon 2 TIM I. 10. And hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel LIFE and immortality by a figure often used in the holy Scriptures is the same with immortal life which our Saviour hath brought to light that is hath given us undoubted assurance of by the revelation of the Gospel For though all men by the light of nature have some apprehensions of a future state yet their reasonings about it when left to themselves are miserably vain and uncertain and often very wild and extravagant The best discourses of the Heathens about the other life were weak and obscure and the wisest Philosophers spake but doubtfully and conjecturally about it nor even in the books of Moses or writings of the Prophets are there contained any plain express promises of eternal life all the knowledge men had of it before was but like the faint glimmerings of twilight till the sun of righteousness appeared till God was pleased to send one from that invisible world even his own most dear Son to dwell here and converse amongst men to make a full discovery to us of this unknown countrey and to conduct us in the onely true way to this everlasting happiness an happiness so great that we have not words big enough to express it nor faculties large enough to comprehend it but yet so much of it is clearly revealed to us in the Gospel as is most abundantly sufficient to raise our thoughts and incite our sincerest endeavours for the obtaining of it By which plain revelation of this state of immortality First Is most illustriously manifested to us the transcendent goodness and indulgence of our most mercifull Creatour in that he will be pleased to reward such imperfect services such mean performances as the best of ours are with glory so immense as that eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive the greatness of it There is nothing in us nor any thing done by us that bears the least proportion to such an ample recompence Our best actions stand in need of a pardon so far are they from deserving to be crowned All possible duty and obedience we certainly owe to him to whom we owe our beings and should God almighty have exacted it from us onely on the account of his sovereign authority over us as we are his creatures we had been indispensably obliged to all subjection to him but that he should over and above promise to reward our faithfulness to him with eternal life this is a most wonderfull instance of his infinite grace and goodness Secondly By this revelation of immortal life is farther demonstrated the exceeding great love of our ever blessed Saviour who by his death and perfect obedience not onely purchased pardon for all our past rebellions and transgressions not onely redeemed us from hell and destruction to which we had all rendred our selves most justly liable which alone had been an unspeakable favour but also merited an everlasting kingdom of glory for us if with true repentance we return to our duty And this if any thing shews the infinite value and efficacy of our Saviour's appearing on our behalf that by his most powerfull mediation he obtained not onely freedom from punishment but also unexpressibly glorious rewards for us vile and wretched sinners upon easie and most reasonable conditions Thirdly This especially recommends our Christianity to us which contains such glad tidings which propounds such mighty arguments to engage us to our duty such as no other religion ever did or could For since hope and fear are the great hinges of all government and the most prevailing passions of humane nature what better thing can be propounded to our hope than to be as happy both in body and soul as we can be and that for ever what more dreadfull thing to our fear than everlasting misery and this indeed is the utmost that can be said or offered to men in order to the reclaiming them from their sins and recovering them to a conscientious observance of God's laws that God hath appointed a day wherein he will call all men to an account for the deeds they have done in this body and reward the sincere faithfull Christian with immortal glory and punish the disobedient and impenitent with everlasting vengeance and if men can harden themselves against these most powerfull considerations if they are not at all concerned or solicitous about their eternal happiness or misery what other motives are likely to prevail with them or able to make any impression upon them For is there any thing of greater weight and moment that can be propounded to the reasons and understandings of men than what shall become of them in a state which they are very shortly to enter upon and which shall never have an end I humbly therefore beg your patience whilst with all the
atchieved you may find many of them recorded in the famous 11th chapter to the Hebrews where the Apostle for the encouragement of all true believers propounds to us the brave examples of the holy Patriarchs and Prophets of old who through faith subdued kingdoms wrought righteousness out of weakness were made strong were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonments they were stoned they were sawn asunder were slain with the sword wandred about in sheep-skins and goat-skins afflicted destitute and tormented These and many more like these were the exploits of the Saints under the old Testament who had not so clear a revelation of this eternal state as we now have under the Gospel But far greater yet and more stupendious are the triumphs of faith in the holy lives and patient deaths of the blessed Apostles and primitive Martyrs and Confessours who with invincible constancy endured pains and torments to flesh and bloud insupportable onely assisted and upheld by the grace of God and a lively faith in this promise of his son Jesus They clap'd their hands and sang praises in the midst of scorching slames they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods and gave God thanks that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name and without doubt God's grace and the same lively faith would produce in us the very same effects and enable us to doe and to suffer the same things with the same joy and resolution But farther This faith by degrees moulds and transforms the mind into a likeness to these heavenly objects it advances and raises our spirits so that they become truly great and noble and makes us as St. Peter tells us partakers of a divine nature It filleth the soul with constant peace and satisfaction so that in all conditions of life a good man can feast himself with unseen joys and delights which the worldly man neither knows nor can relish This makes him content with any small allowance of this worlds goods and glad if by any hard shift he can rub through this world till he comes to his Kingdom He is but very little concerned about these seemingly grand affairs of this life which so much take up and busie other mens thoughts and time He converseth most with invisible objects and with them finds that solid and lasting comfort which all outward things can neither give nor take away He hath something to uphold and chear his spirit under all worldly calamities and distractions and when he is wearied with the impertinencies of this life or is not pleased with things here below he can retire himself into the other world and there entertain his mind with those ravishing joys that never cloy nor satiate Nay this faith arms a man against the fear of death it strips that King of terrours of all his grim looks for he considers it onely as God's messenger to knock off his fetters to free him from this fleshly prison and to conduct him to that blessed place where he shall be more happy than he can wish or desire to be and that for ever All this and much more than I can now speak will this faith do where it is sincere and hearty It will serve us instead of sight it will afford us a fore-tast of this immortal happiness it will give us present entrance into heaven in part and at last a full and complete fruition of it Oh then let it be most plainly seen by our words by our works by all we doe whereever we are what our faith and hope is Let it appear to all men that we walk by faith not by sight or sense Sense is a mean low narrow principle confin'd to this present time and this lower earth it can reach no higher than these outward visible things nor can it look farther than things present But the just shall live by faith they steer their course and govern their lives not by what they see but by what they believe and hope for looking beyond things temporal for those things that are eternal Let us not be ashamed of this our design and aim-before all men that whatever others think or say of us for it we are resolved to be happy not onely for a few days or years but for ever that we will so use this world as those that must shortly leave it that we will so improve and husband our time as remembring that it will soon be no more but be swallowed up in eternity and did the stupid world know and believe what you doe they would no longer wonder at your being so much moved in a case of such unspeakable and everlasting consequence Blessed be God who hath set such mighty hopes before us who hath given us such glorious promises who hath made such a plain and clear revelation of this eternal life by Jesus Christ and hath by him taught us the true way of obtaining it who himself became to us an example of that holy life he prescribed to us and after he had suffered for our transgressions in our nature entred into the highest heavens to prepare mansions of glory for all the faithfull followers of him To whom therefore with the Father and Holy Ghost one eternal God be ascribed by us and all men all praise thanksgiving and obedience for evermore Amen THE END