great reason to suspect it For now the Seasons of the Pleasures of Sin are over he cannot relish their Delights because his cloyed Appetite distastes them as the full Stomach doth the Honey-comb and his Soul being now uninterested in all sinful Pleasure and being naturally in continual Motion must necessarily divert the Current of its Action some other way and the future State to which it is so nearly allied being all it hath to work upon it is no wonder if the Freedom of its Motion turn thitherwards being diverted out of its old Channel for if he love his Sins or the World never so well he must leave them whether he will or no if he dislike God and his Holiness and an everlasting Abode with him never so much he is forced upon them or dashed upon eternal Misery which it is impossible for him to chuse So that now his good Resolution is scarce an Act of Choice for tho' he would not chuse to obey God if he could still enjoy his former Lusts yet they being out of his reach he must take what is to be had So that 't is mighty Suspicious that the Sense of his Resolution is no more than this Holiness is good when a Man is just dying but while he lives and can enjoy his Lusts they are a great deal better so that the Approach of Death makes Holiness good to him upon this account only because there would be some thing worse and there can no longer be any thing better and 't is to be feared he esteems it good only in comparison with Hell which without it will inevitably follow And when it thus purchases the reputation of being good from the near approach of such a mighty Evil it is not so much esteemed a Good as a lesser Evil which argues that the Mans Judgment is not at all altered for still he looks on Holiness as an Evil and in chusing it before Hell he only chuses of two Evils the least and 't is extreamly Suspicious that he would no more have chosen it now than he did while he was Well and in Health but that it stands at present out of the Air of Temptation and is presented to him without the Counterpoize of those sinful Delights for whose sake he formerly rejected it For there are many Apprehensions which make deep Impressions not only on our Brain and Fansies but on our Affections too whilst these are calm and unprovoked which impressions notwithstanding quickly vanish upon the starting of new Objects and the provocation of contrary Fansies and Affections by them so that it is impossible to be certain what those good Resolutions will come to which a Man makes when he hath no Temptation to the contrary The utmost therefore that can be said of them is this they may be sincere and they may hold out but there is an infinite Hazard in them they are easily made because at present there is no Temptation against them no vicious Appetite strong enough to controul them but there is vast Reason to fear that should the Man recover and his Appetites return again upon him the next Temptation would betray him and make him surrender up all his Resolution and consequently if he die before he hath made a Trial of himself his Condition must needs be extreamly uncertain his Hope must sit upon the Brinks of Despair and his Soul go trembling into Eternity to think what a Hazard it is now a running 3. He resolves under the Horrors and Agonies of an awakened Conscience and this also renders his Resolution extreamly Suspicious And indeed that Man must be in a dead Sleep that will not awake when Death is sounding the Trumpet of Iudgment in his Ears and calling him instantly away to give up his unprepared Accounts For though when Iudgment seems to us at the other end of Heaven all is quiet yet certainly when Death brings us to the very Seat of it the Awe of that dreadful Tribunal of which we are now in sight and the Sense of so many Guilts staring us in the face of which we must the next Moment acquit our selves or Die for ever must necessarily shake out sleepy Consciences into unspeakable Horrors and Agonies and make us infinitely Solicitous to fly from the Wrath that is to come And in this Distress being conscious to himself that the best thing he can do is to resolve upon Amendment for the future here he puts in for Sanctuary having no other hole to hide his guilty Head So that now to resolve well is hardly an Act of Choice and it is much to be feared that 't is only an Expedient snatched up for the present Extremity and though now he be very serious yet that prehaps is only the effect of a suddain Cast of Melancholy on his Thoughts and if it be when that removes his Thoughts will be quite of another Colour or if it be the Result of a more through Conviction yet it is very probable that may go off too when the Mans Circumstances are altered that when the present Tragick Scene is removed out of sight and the Alarm of his approaching Judgment sounds no longer in his Ears he will presently let fall those Resolutions again which he took up only as a shield against his Conscience And this being so uncertain what a fearful Hazard must that Man run that depends upon such Resolutions and imbarks his Soul into Eternity in them For though it is possible they may be sincere yet it is highly probable that they are not but as they were raised only by a Storm of Horror so if that were laid they would fall again and if they should be False and Hypocritical as God only knows whether they are or no the poor Man is certainly lost and undone for ever 4. And lastly he resolves in the near Neighbourhood of Eternity which also renders his Resolution very Suspicious For the Soul is never more sensible of Eternity than when 't is walking on the Confines of it for the very loosing it from the Body wherein it dwells and in which its Motions are all confined doth many times give her some lesser Degrees of those Advantages which free and naked Spirits have that are not imprisoned in Flesh. For the less the Soul is found to work by the Body the higher are its Operations and all her extraordinary Motions are a kind of Ravishment from Sense It is therefore very probable that when the Soul is leaving the Body it hath naturally a more sensible Touch and Feeling of its eternal State because the nearer any thing is to its Residence the more vehement is its Motion thither and consequently the nearer the Soul is to its eternal Abode the more quick and vigorous may we reasonably suppose its Motions thither so that when the other World is in view and it is just upon the Region of Spirits it is no wonder if the Sense of her approaching everlasting Fate put her into great Tremblings and
Bodies and take leave of all the Pleasures of them it is very requisite that we should now before-hand wean and abstract our selves from the Enjoyments of corporeal Sense that so when we come to part with them we may know how to be happy without them and be fit to live the Lives of naked Spirits And therefore we find that there has scarce been any Religion whatsoever pretending to qualify Men for another Life but hath imposed Fasting and Abstinence and other bodily Severities as proper Means to lustrate and purify the Mind and to prepare it for immediate Converses with God and separated Spirits but then the Consequence was that the over-strict Imposition of these Instrumentals of Religion occasioned a world of Superstition for being so strictly imposed they obtained so far in the Opinion of the World as to be reckoned among the Essentials of Religion and counted absolutely good and in their own Nature pleasing and grateful unto God which possibly by degrees introduced those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 horrid and bloody Mysteries into the Heathen Religion For Mankind being once possessed with such an Opinion of God as to think he was pleased and delighted to see his poor Creatures afflict and punish themselves it was easie from thence to infer that he would be much more pleased to see them butcher themselves and sprinkle his Altars with their own Blood And as this over-weening Opinion did probably introduce humane Sacrifices into the Heathen Religion so it is certain that it hath introduced sundry false Doctrines into the Romish as particularly that Fasting and Whipping our selves and going on Pilgrimages are meritorious Things that by them we expiate our Sins and make Satisfaction to the Justice of God as if the Guilt that binds us over to eternal Perdition were to be expiated by a sound Whipping or a short Pilgrimage were a proportionable Commutation for the eternal Penance of Hell Fire But these are the vain Imaginations of Men who would faign impose Laws upon God and prescribe to him the Measures of Punishment who would do as wickedly as they please and suffer what they please for so doing But let us not deceive our selves if we will choose to sin it is reasonable that that God whom we offend by our Sin should choose and appoint our Punishment It is by no means fit that Criminals should be their own Iudges for if they were they would have very little Reason to be afraid of sinning because they would be obliged to suffer no more for it than what they pleased themselves but the Right of punishing is in the offended Party and therefore if we will offend God by violating his Laws we have no right to choose our own Penance but must whether we will or no submit to what He thinks fit to inflict upon us and what that is he hath told us before-hand even everlasting Expulsion from his Presence into the Society and Portion of Devils and damned Spirits So that for us to expect to attone and satisfy God by little voluntary Penances of our own is just as unreasonable as if a Murderer should cut off his little Finger and thereupon expect to be excused from the Penalty of the Law And as these bodily Severities are no Expiations of our Sins so neither are they in their own Nature pleasing and grateful unto God for he is a good God and an universal Lover of all his Creation and consequently can be no farther pleased with the Sufferings and Afflictions of any of his Creatures than as they are necessary either to do them good or to make them exemplary to others or to vindicate the Honour of his own violated Laws neither of which Ends are served by voluntary Penances and Severities as such if they be not subordinated to the Ends of Virtue and Religion For what can Fasting signify if it be not designed to famish our Lusts Can our hungry Bowels be a delightful Spectacle to that God who feeds the young Ravens and takes so much care to provide for all his Creation What Virtue is there in the Chastning of our Bodies if it be not intended to humble and mortify our Souls Do we think that that God who is so zealous of our Welfare can be recreated with our Miseries or take pleasure in our tragical Looks and bloody Shoulders 'T is true so far as these things are Instruments of Good to us they are pleasing unto God even as all other Instruments of Religion but it is not the suffering of our Bodies he is pleased with but the good which it doth our Souls but if they do our Souls no good if they do not purify our Affections and wean us from fleshly Desires and make us more fit for the heavenly State they are as insignificant in the Account of God as the paring of our Nails or the clipping of our Hair 3. Another sort of these bodily Exercises that are of some though but little account in Religion is bodily Passions in Religion There is I confess an excellent Use to be made of our bodily Passions in the Exercise of our Religion provided we do not place our Religion in them for if we do they will betray us into the grossest Cheats and Impostures For in the general we find that our Passions do wing our intellectual Faculties and render them more intense and expedite in their Operations For whilst the Soul and Body are united to one another there is a mutual Reflowing and Communication of Passions between them insomuch that whensoever the Soul is any ways affected with any Object there immediately follows a suitable Perturbation or Passion in the Body and then this Passion of the Body as it is grateful or ingrateful to it doth more vigorously affect the Soul with Love or Aversation and then the Soul being thus reaffected and incited by the bodily Passion will more vehemently pursue or shun the Object which caused its first Motion or Affection When therefore our Souls and Bodies do thus sympathize with each other in the Exercises of Religion we must necessarily perform them with greater Vigour and Intension But to make this more plain to you I will briefly instance in those four great Passions of Religion viz. Love and Hatred and Sorrow and Ioy. As for that of Love when the Soul is affected with God or Virtue or any other amiable Objects of Religion immediately there follows a sweet and grateful Passion in the Body For the Heart being dilated towards the beloved Object puts the Blood and Spirits into a free and placid Motion which diffuses a certain agreeable Heat into the Breast and invigorates the Brain with a flood of active Spirits and then the Soul being sensible of this grateful Emotion in the Body is thereby more vigorously incited to pursue those amiable Objects wherewith she was first affected And so for Hatred when the Soul is practically convinced by the Arguments of Religion of the Odiousness of any Evil it forbids the
Enmity and Hatred she hath towards it causes an anxious Contraction of the Heart and Compression of the Animal Spirits which produces a Chilness in the Breast a retarding of the Blood and an unequal motion of the Pulse and then the Soul sympathizing with the Body cannot but be sensible of this ungrateful Passion it is put into which must needs add to her Hatred of those odious Objects which were the Cause of it and cause her more vehemently to shun and avoid them So again when the Soul is moved to Sorrow and Repentance for any past Sins and Miscarriages the sad Regrets she suffers within her self produce a very doleful Passion in the Body such as pinches the Heart congeals the Blood and causes an ungrateful Languor of the Spirits and then by compassionating her grieved Consort she is thereby excited to a higher degree of Displeasure against those Sins that caused its Grief and Disturbance Lastly when the Soul is joyed and delighted with any religious Object or Exercise by that sweet Complacency she enjoys within her self there is produced a most pleasant Emotion in the Body the Animal Spirits flowing to the Heart in an equal and placid Stream where being arrived through its dilated Orifices they sooth and tickle it into a most sensible Pleasure and then the Soul being affected with the Body's Pleasure doth from thence derive an additional Joy which doth more vigorously encourage her to pursue those Objects and continue those Exercises from whence her Original Joy proceeded So that you see that by reason of that perpetual Intercourse there is between our Souls and our Bodies there is an excellent Use even of our sensitive Passions in Religion And it cannot be denied but that a gentle Temper of Body whose Passions are soft and easie and ductile and apt to be commoved with the Soul may be of great advantage in our Religious Exercises because whensoever it is religiously affected its Passions will be apt to intend and quicken the Affections of the Soul and to render them more vigorous and active but farther than this they are of no account at all in Religion For as there are many Men who are sincerely good that yet cannot raise their sensitive Passions in their religious Exercises that are heartily sorry for their Sins and yet cannot weep for them that do entirely love God and delight in his Service and yet cannot put their Blood and Spirits into the enravishing Emotions of sensitive Love and Joy so on the other hand there are many gross Hypocrites that have not one dram of true Piety in them who yet in their Religious Exercises can put themselves into wondrous Transports of bodily Passion that can pour out their Confessions in Floods of Tears and cause their Hearts to dilate into Raptures of sensitive Love and their Spirits to tickle them into Ecstasies of Joy which is purely to be resolved into the different Tempers of Mens Bodies some Tempers being naturally so calm and sedate as that they are scarce capable of being disturbed into a Passion others again so soft and tender and impressible that the most frivolous Fancy is able to raise a Commotion in them And hence we see that some People can weep most heartily at the Misfortunes of Lovers in Plays and Romances and as much rejoyce at their good Successes though they know that both are Fictions and mere Idea's of Fancy whereas others can scarce shed a Tear or raise a sensitive Joy at the real Calamities or Prosperities of a Friend whom yet they love a great deal more than these Men can possibly do their feigned and Romantick Heroes And yet alas how very often do Men place the whole of their Religion in these mechanical Motions of their Blood and Spirits that think they are exceeding good if they can but chafe themselves into a devout Passion and that it is an infallible Sign of Godliness that their Blood and Spirits are easily moved by religious Idea's and apt to be elevated or dejected according as sad or joyous Arguments are pathetically represented to their Fancies and though they do not understand the Argument or which is all one to them though that which is delivered for Argument is mere Gibberish and insignificant Canting that hath nothing of Argument or Reality in it only some empty Fiction is conveyed to their Fancies by a musical Voice in fanciful Expressions yet because they are affected by it and it raises a sensible Perturbation in their Blood and Spirits they presently conclude it to be an Income of God and an infallible Token of his special Love and Favour to them as if it were a Sign of Godliness and a Mark of God's Favourites to be affected with Nonsense feathered with soft and delicate Phrases and pointed with pathetick Accents Thus there are some Men who believe themselves to be converted meerly because they have run through all the Stages of Passion in that new Road of Artificial Conversion which some modern Authors have found out for according as the Work of Conversion hath been described by some modern Authors it is wholly placed in so many different Scenes of Passion For first a Man must pass under the Discipline of the Law and the Spirit of Bondage that is he must be frightned into a Sense of his lost and undone Condition and in this Sense he must grieve bitterly for his Sins as the Causes of his Ruin and Perdition and this is that which they call Conviction and Compunction From hence he must proceed into the Evangelical State and pass into the Spirit of Adoption the Entrance of which is Contrition or Humiliation which consists in an ingenuous Sorrow for Sin proceeding from a passionate Sense of God's Love and Goodness and then having acted over all these mournful Passions he embraces and lays hold upon Christ which is the concluding Scene and is altogether made up of Ioy and Exultation and so the Work of Conversion is finish'd Now though I do not at all deny but to the Conversion of an habitual Sinner it is indispensably necessary that he should be convinc'd of his Danger and deeply affected with Sorrow and Remorse for his Folly and Wickedness and therefore would not be so understood as if I intended to discountenance these holy Passions which are such necessary Introductions to a sincere Conversion yet neither do I doubt but by the help of a melancholy Fancy attended with soft and easie Passions a Man may perform all these Parts of Conversion and yet be never the better for it for many times these Passions are only the necessary effects of a diseased Fancy and are altogether as mechanical as the beating of our Pulse or the Circulation of our Blood And hence we see that this kind of Conversion which wholly consists of bodily Passions doth commonly both begin and end with some languishing Distemper of the Body in which the Fancy is over-clouded and the Motion of the Blood and Spirits retarded by the Prevalence
the Charms of pathetical Oratory To be able therefore to word our Prayers in proper and ready Expressions is of considerable Advantage to our Devotions our Words being so apt to affect our Minds and our Passions to keep time with the Musick of our own Language and whilst we wear these Bodies about us and our Souls are so clogged and depressed with fleshly Desires we have need enough to use all Arts and Advantages of spiriting and enlivening our Devotions But yet I confess of all these bodily Exercises this is the least considerable in Religion because we may easily supply the Defect of natural Fluency by excellent Forms of Prayer the Use of which is doubtless far more expedient than the best of our extempore Effusions For he that uses a Form hath nothing else to do in Prayer but only to recollect his own Thoughts and fix them upon God and to keep his Mind affected with a due Sense of the Divine Majesty and his own Need of and Dependance upon him whereas he that prays extempore besides all this is concerned to invent proper and apt Expressions lest he should be impertinent or indecent in his Addresses unto God unless he expects that the Spirit should immediately dictate to him the Words of his Prayer which is to suppose himself a Person immediately inspired and his Prayer of Divine Revelation and consequently of equal Authority with the Scriptures themselves But the best Religious Use that can be made of Fluency and Volubility of Speech is in speaking to others of God and Things Divine here it is useful indeed to make a Man an Orator for Religion and to enable him to recommend it more effectually to others Thus far therefore this sort of bodily Exercise may be profitable both as it may be made instrumental to raise our own Devotions and to propagate true Piety unto others but beyond this I know no place at all that it hath in Religion for there is no doubt but we may be very good Men without this Gift of Fluency and very bad Men with it there being no Necessity of Consequence from an honest Heart to a voluble Tongue And certainly that which proceeds from no higher Principle than meer natural Enthusiasm and consequently may be easily attained by Persons grosly hypocritical and debauched ought not to be looked upon as a Mark of Godliness And yet alas how many Men are there that place all their Religion in their Tongues and esteem it as a certain Sign of Grace that they are able to pray in fluent Expressions and to talk of God in rapturous Flights of Fancy For they being most commonly straitned in their Religious Exercises and not able to vent themselves with any Freedom or Readiness when they fall into an extraordinary Fit of Fluency and Enlargement of which they can give no natural Account they presently conclude it to be an immediate Gift of God's Spirit and a special Token of his peculiar Favour to them And accordingly if you peruse the late Histories of the spiritual Experiences of our modern Converts you will find that they contain little else but strange Relations of their rapturous Discourses and wondrous Enlargements in Frayer which because they have something extraordinary in them are generally thought to be the immediate Effects of the Divine Spirit whereas commonly they proceed meerly from the present Temper of the Body and are as mechanical as any other Operations of Nature For let a Man's Body be but put into a fervent Temper his Spirits into quick but manageable Motions this will naturally produce in him a more fine and exquisite Power of Perception by causing the Images of Things to come faster into his Fancy and to appear more distinct there and then his Fancy being more pregnant with new Idea's and Images than it uses to be his Expressions must necessarily be more fluent and easie But then if when this natural Fervour of his Temper be intended with Vapours of heated Melancholy his Fancy be but often impressed and rubbed upon with the most vehement and moving Objects of Religion such as God and Christ and Heaven and Hell it must necessarily raise in him great and vehement Passions and dictate to him pathetick and rapturous Expressions And this hath been commonly experimented by the Devoto's of all Religions for even among the devouter Turks and Heathens we may find as notorious Instances of those Incomes and Enlargements as in any of our modern Histories of Christian Experiences Thus the Heathen Poets in all high Flushes of their Fancy conceited themselves divinely inspired Est Deus in nobis agitante calescimus illo And that great Orator Aristides positively affirms himself to be inspired in his Orations because sometimes he felt in himself an extraordinary Vein of Fluency which was only excited by a brisker Agitation of his Spirits Wherefore it is not at all to be wondered at if when Men are employed in Religious Exercises the same natural Enthusiasm especially when it is exalted by Religious Melancholy should so wing and inspire their Fancies For there is no Man whatsoever that is but religiously inclined and of a soft and impressive Temper but by familiarizing his Fancy to the great Objects of Religion and setting them before his Mind in distinct and affecting Idea's may easily chafe himself into such a Pathos as to be able to talk to or of God and Religion in lofty and rapturous Strains of Divine Rhetorick nor is it any Argument of such a Man 's being inspired that his Discourse doth so move and affect those that hear him because all Language that is soft fluent and pathetical is naturally apt to make deep Impressions on the Auditors For even the Grecian Sophists as Plutarch tells us by their singing Tones and honied Words and effeminate Phrases and Accents did very often transport their Auditors into a kind of Bacchical Enthusiasm And no doubt but the Hearers of whom he speaks who were wont to applaud their Orators at the End of their Declamations with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divinely heavenly preciously unimitably spoken found themselves as much moved as many a Man doth at a Sermon who yet thinks it is not the Art of the Preacher but the Spirit of God speaking in and by him that warms and excites them Wherefore as we would not deceive and undo our own Souls let us have a great care that we do not place our Religion in any such Enthusiastick Fervors of Spirit and Overflowings of Fancy for though this may be a helpful Instrument to us in our Religious Exercises yet it is not by this that we are to estimate the Goodness of them but by those Laws and Circumstances which do moralize humane Actions and render them reasonable and holy and good For 't is not in loud Noises or melting Expressions that the divine Spirit is discovered but in a divine Nature and God-like Disposition and the Effects of true Religion are not to be look'd for in
that which is its Grace and Perfection begins at the wrong End of himself forgets his Iewels and estimates his Estate by his Lumber in so much that one would think it impossible did not too many woful Expeperiments daily evince the contrary that any Creature owning and believing a rational and immortal Spirit to be a Part of its Being should be so ridiculous as to value it self by such little trifling Advantages as a well-coloured Skin a Suit of fine Cloaths a Puff of Popular Applause a Bag of red or white Earth and yet God help us these are the only Things almost by which we difference our selves from one another You are a much better Man than your Neighbour who is a very poor contemptible Wretch a little creeping despicable Animal not worthy to be taken notice of by such a one as you Why in the name of God Sir what 's the matter Where is this mighty Difference between you and him Hath he not a Soul as well as you a Soul that is capable to live as long and be as happy as yours Yes that is true indeed but notwithstanding that you thank God for it you are another guize Man than he for you have a much bandsomer Body your Apparel is finer and more fashionable you live in a more splendid Equipage and have a larger Purse to maintain it and to your great Comfort your Name is more in Vogue and makes a far greater Rattle in the World And is this all the Difference then between your mighty Self and your poor Neighbour Alas a few Days more will put an End to all this and when your rich Attires are reduced to a Winding-sheet and all your vast Possessions to six Foot of Earth what will become of all these little Trifles by which you value your selves so highly Where now will be the Beauty the Wealth the Port and Garb of which you are so conceited Alas now that lovely Body will look as pale and gastly that lofty Soul will be left as bare as poor and naked as your despised Neighbours and should you now meet his wandring Ghost in the vast World of Spirits what will you have left to boast of more than he now that your Beauty is withered your Wealth vanished and all your outward Pomp and Splendor buried in a silent Grave Now you will have nothing left to distinguish you from the most Contemptible unless you have wiser and better Souls which are the only Preheminencies above other Men that will survive our Funerals and distinguish us from base and abject Souls for ever If we are now more pious and humble and just and charitable than other Men this will stick by us when our Heads are laid and to all Eternity render us glorious and happy And indeed when once we have thrown off our Body and all our bodily Passions and Necessities the only Goods we shall be capable of enjoying are God our selves and the Society of blessed Spirits and these are no otherwise enjoyable but only by Acts of Piety and Vertue It is only by our Contemplation and Worship our Love and Imitation of God that we can enjoy him it is only by our Prudence and Moderation our Temperance and Humility that we can enjoy our selves it is only by our Charity and Iustice our Modesty peaceable and mutual Submission and Condescention to one another that we can enjoy the glorious Society of blessed Spirits but if our unbodied Spirits carry with them these divine Graces into the other World we shall by them be possessed of every Thing our utmost Wishes can propose of a good God a god-like joyous and contented Mind a peaceful kind and righteous Neighbourhood and so all above within and without us will be a pure and perfect Heaven So that if when I go from hence to seek my fortune in the World of Spirits God should thus bespeak me O man seeing thou art now leaving all the Enjoyments of sense consult what will do thee good and thou shalt have whatever thou wilt ask to carry with thee into the spiritual State I say should God thus offer me I am sure the utmost Good I could wisely crave would be this Lord give me a Heart inflamed with Love and winged with Duty to thee that thereby I may but enjoy thee give me a sober and a temperate Mind that thereby I may enjoy my self give me a kind and peaceable and righteous Temper that thereby I may enjoy the sweet Society of blessed Spirits O give me but these blessed Things and thou hast crowned all my Wishes and to Eternity I will never ask any other Favour for my self but only this that I may continue a holy and a righteous Soul for ever for so long as I continue so I am sure I shall enjoy all spiritual Goods and be as happy as Heaven can make me What a prodigious Piece of Folly therefore is it for Men to value themselves more upon these outward Advantages of which ere long they must be stript than upon the Graces and Vertues of their own Minds on which they must subsist for ever Suppose now that you were a Merchant in a far Country where you were allowed for a short uncertain Time the Benefit of free Trade and Commerce in order to your gaining a good Estate to maintain you in your own Native Country when ever you are forced to return would you be so indiscreet as to lay out all the Product of your Merchandize in building fine Houses and purchasing great Farms when you know not how soon you may be commanded to depart and leave all these immoveable Goods behind you Or rather would you not think your selves obliged by all the Rules of Interest and Discretion to convert all your Gain into portable Wealth into Mony or Jewels or other such moveable Commodities as when ever you are forced to depart you might carry Home along with you and there maintain your selves with them in many years Ease and Plenty Do but think then and think it often that while you live here you are but Strangers and Foreign Merchants that you came hither from another World to which you know not how soon you may be forced to return that all the Wealth the Lands and Houses you gain by your present Commerce are immoveable Goods which you must leave behind you when you go from hence and that there is nothing portable of all that you can gain in this World but only the Graces and Vertues of your Minds and that therefore while you have Opportunity it concerns you above all Things to store and treasure up a plentiful Portion of these that so whenever you are shipt off into the eternal World you may carry such an Estate of them thither with you as may suffice to maintain you there in Glory and Happiness for ever which God of his infinite Mercy grant 1 JOHN III. 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he
the Age whereas in truth they would prove the rankest Hypocrites that ever appeared in a religious Vizard And of these he exhorts Timothy carefully to forewarn his Flock and for his own part to reject their profane and ridiculous Fables and rather to exercise himself in true substantial Godliness than in such outward bodily Rigors and Severities for which he subjoyns this general Reason for bodily exercise profiteth little that is mere outward bodily Exercise in Religion abstracted from inward Piety and Godliness is of very little avail in a Religious Account For the bodily Exercise here spoken of it seems was such as had some little Profit attending it and consequently was such as had some general Tendency to Good and was improveable to some advantage had it been wisely managed and directed For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here translated little is not so to be understood as if it signified nothing because it is here opposed to something that is greater viz. to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bodily Exercise profiteth little but Godliness is profitable for all things and therefore this bodily Exercise must profit something though less than Godliness which is profitable for all things As when Plato says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrates must be a little attended but Truth a great deal more And if it be such an Exercise as doth profit a little then it must be such as is Religious and is of some small account in Religion In the Prosecution of this Subject therefore I shall do these two things I. Shew you what this outward or bodily Exercise in Religion is II. In what Cases it is that it profits little I. Wherein doth this bodily Exercise consist I answer it consists in these six things 1. In an outward visible Profession of Religion 2. In bodily Severities upon Religious Accounts 3. In bodily Passions in Religion 4. In bodily Worship 5. In bodily Fluency and Volubility in Religious Exercises 6. In a mere outward Form or Round of Religious Duties 1. It consists in an outward visible Profession of Religion That we should make a visible Profession of the true Religion when it is sufficiently proposed to us is an unquestionable Duty and that for this Reason because not to profess visibly what we believe to be the true Religion is an open disowning of God who is the immediate Object of all true Religion For he that believes that this is the Will of God and yet is either ashamed or afraid openly to avow and acknowledge it declares that he is either ashamed of God or that he fears Man more than God both which are highly impious Besides by our visible owning of Religion we propose it to others who by our Example may be perswaded to embrace it as well as we and it is our Duty not only to entertain the true Religion our selves but so far as in us lies to propagate it to others that so diffusing our Light round about us others may be directed to Heaven by it as well as our selves This therefore is of some Account with God that we visibly profess the true Religion but if this be all we do it will profit us but very little For if we do not own Religion in our Actions while we profess it in our Words we contradict our selves our Practice gives the Lye to our Creed and our wicked Lives baffle our holy Profession for while a Man acts contrary to the Rules of his Religion he doth as effectually disown it as if he should openly renounce his Baptism and make a publick Recantation of Christianity For as our Profession of Religion is performed by a visible signification of our Belief of it and as this may be signified by our Actions as well as our Words so in effect we do renounce Religion when we give any visible signification that we do not believe it and this we do as well when we act like Infidels as when by Words we declare our Infidelity For by our Deeds we may signify our Minds as well as by our Words and he that acts as if he did not believe doth give a more convincing Argument of his Infidelity than all his Words or Professions can be of the contrary because it is rationally supposable that a Man will rather pretend to believe what he doth not than that he will act contrary to his own Belief and Judgment it being a greater degree of Violence to our selves to act contrary to what we do believe than to pretend to believe what we do not So that it is not all our Talk and verbal owning of Religion that will serve the end of a visible Profession which is so to own God as to induce others to own him as well as our selves because he that denies God in his Actions will never be able to induce others to believe that he doth sincerely own him in his Words and Profassions Wherefore unless we will live up to the Rules of our Religion we were as good not to make any visible Profession of it for our Profession will serve no good Ends of Religion it may indeed disgrace it in the Opinion of those who measure its Goodness by the Lives of its Votaries for either they will think that our Religion teaches us to live as we do and that will make them abhor it or else they will imagine that notwithstanding our Profession we do not believe it and that will make them suspect it to be a Cheat and Imposture So that for any Good Christianity is like to reap from wicked Christians professing it it were highly desirable that they would renounce their Baptism and openly declare themselves Atheists or Infidels because by their Actions they blaspheme the Religion they profess and by assuming to themselves the holy Name of Christians they do but more openly profane it 2. Another sort of bodily Exercise that is of some though but little Account in Religion is our voluntary undergoing of bodily Rigours or Severities upon the score of Religion There is doubtless a very wise use to be made of bodily Severities in Religion provided they be but used with that Prudence and Caution as they ought to be for they are excellent Remedies against many of our inordinate fleshly Inclinations to came our extravagant Appetites and to render them more tractable to the Commands of Reason and Religion besides that in the general they are of singular Use to wean our Souls from the Pleasures of the Body which do often corrupt the palate of the Mind and render it incapable of relishing divine Enjoyments For if we indulge to our Appetites all those lawful Pleasures which they crave our Souls will be apt to contract too great a Familiarity with the Flesh and to be so taken up with the Delights and Satisfactions of it as to neglect those diviner Pleasures for which they were created and which are more natural and congenial to them and considering that in our future State we must live without these
Words and Talk but in Life and Action and therefore St. Paul tells the Corinthians some of whom it seems had too great an Opinion of his Way of Religious Rhetorication that he would come among them and know not the speech of them that were puffed up but the power for the Kingdom of God saith he consisteth not in word but in power 1 Cor. iv 19 20. Fifthly Another sort of bodily Exercise that is of some though but little Account in Religion is outward and bodily Worship There is no doubt but we ought when we are worshipping God to signify the profound sense that we have of his Majesty and Greatness by outward Adorations and an humble and lowly Demeanour For though we may signify to God the Honour and Worship that we owe him by the internal Acts of our Mind by our Love and Fear and Hope and Admiration because he sees our Hearts and discerns the most secret Motions of our Souls yet since to him we owe the Members of our Bodies as well as the Faculties of our Minds it is very reasonable that we should worship him with both that both our Bodies and Minds should offer the Tribute of Homage which they owe to the Fountain of their Beings that so having each of them a share in the Bounties of God they may be Co-partners too in the Returns of Gratitude to him And though the internal Acts of our Minds do sufficiently signify unto God our Esteem and Veneration of Him yet it is highly reasonable especially in our publick Addresses to him that we should signify it to Men also that they may be excited by our Example to glorify God and to acknowledge and adore the infinite Perfections of his Nature and we have no other way to signify to Men our Veneration of God but only by corporeal Actions that is by such Actions or Gestures of the Body as either by Nature or by Custom are significant of our inward Esteem and Adoration of him And this without doubt is a Part of Natural Religion forasmuch as there never was any People of any Religion whatsoever but what have always expressed their Veneration of the Divinities whom they owned by such external Reverences as were customary amongst them And accordingly we are enjoined in Scripture to offer up unto God the Homage of our Bodies as well as of our Souls to worship and bow down and kneel before the Lord our Maker Psal. xcv 6. and to glorifie him with our Souls and Bodies which are his 1 Cor. vi 20. And when the Devil solicited our Saviour with the Promise of all the Kingdoms of the World to bow down and worship him that is to render him external Homage and Reverence our Saviour rejects the Motion with an it is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Matth. iv 10. which Words must be understood of external as well as internal Worship otherwise his Answer is no wise pertinent to the Devil's Proposals which extended only to external Worship and Adoration And as bodily Worship is enjoined by express Precept so it is warranted by the concurrent Examples of all holy Men for in the Old Testament you have almost as many Examples of it as there are Instances of devout and religious Persons and so observant were the Jews of all external Reverence in their Religious Exercises that to fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker seems to have been Proverbial of their Prayers and Publick Worship And lest any Man should imagine these bodily Reverences to have been Part of that Ceremonial Worship that was abolish'd by the Gospel there are sufficient Examples of it recorded in the New Testament both to excite and warrant our Imitation For even the blessed Iesus himself who thought it no Robbery to be equal with God yet being in the Form of a Servant he thought it no scorn to kneel and prostrate himself before him for thus when he was in his last Agony it is said that he fell on his face and prayed Matth. xxxvi 39. which in those Eastern Countries was a Signification of the profoundest Reverence and afterwards when having awoke his Disciples he returned to his Prayer again St. Luke tells us that he fell upon his knees and prayed Luke xxii 41. Thus of St. Stephen when he was breathing out his Soul in that hearty Prayer for his Enemies it is said that he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice Lord lay not this Sin to their Charge Acts vii 60. So also St. Peter when he came to raise Tabitha from the dead is said to kneel down and pray Acts ix 40. And St. Paul acquainting the Ephesians how earnestly he prayed for them thus expresses himself for this Cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ Ephes. iii. 14. And when he was going to Rome and had taken his last Farewel of the Brethren at Miletum it is said that he kneeled down and prayed with them Acts xx 36. And how loudly soever some of our new-fashioned Christians may explode external Reverence under a Pretence of worshipping God in a more spiritual Manner it is certain that there never was any thing even externally more devout and solemn than the Religious Assemblies of the Primitive Christians for generally at the Reading of their publick Liturgies the whole Congregation kneeled down upon the bare Floor with their Heads uncovered their Eyes lift up to Heaven and their Hands stretched forth in fashion of a Cross and then the whole Congregation being composed into a deep Silence the Minister began the publick Service in a most serious and humble manner not throwing about his Prayers at random with a clamorous wild and confused Voice but pronouncing them with a most decorous Calmness and Modesty the People in the mean time demeaning themselves so solemnly and uniformly that you would have thought the whole Assembly to have been animated with one Soul and that Soul to have been nothing else but a vital Sense of the adorable Majesty and supereminent Perfections of God So heavenly wide was the Primitive Pattern from the Rudeness and Irreverence of our modern Devotions that I doubt not should those blessed Martyrs and Confessors of our holy Religion arise from their Graves and come into our publick Assemblies they would suspect that we met together rather to be worshipp'd by God than to worship him our usual Postures being much fitter for Iudges than for Supplicants and such as rather bespeak us to be receiving Petitions from God than offering up Prayers to him For what Sign do we give that we come to worship the great Majesty above when we rudely squat upon our Seats with our Hats half on as if we thought it too great a Condescension to uncover our Heads and kneel before the Lord our Maker and that we made not bold enough with him unless we treated him as our Fellow and it were a piece of holy Familiarity to be
to us God hath therefore promised it to us upon certain Terms and Conditions that so we might have a sure Foundation to build our Hope upon that we might know upon what Grounds we are to expect that blessed Reward which we could never have done had God left himself free to with-hold or bestow it upon us according to the arbitrary and to us uncertain Determinations of his Will and not bequeathed it to us upon such Conditions by his own irrevocable Promise That therefore which gives us a Right to Heaven and is the only true Ground of our Hopes of it is our performing the Condition upon which it is promised to us and the Condition upon which it is promised to us is nothing less than true and universal Godliness And hence the Apostle tells us that without holiness no man shall see the Lord Heb. xii 14. and our Saviour in Matth. v. restrains the Beatitudes of the other World to those that are poor in Spirit and pure in Heart that are benign and merciful that hunger and thirst after Righteousness and that endure the unjust Persecutions of the World with Christian Patience and Courage and Constancy And the Promise of eternal Life is limited by the Apostle to those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality Rom. ii 7. And if Godliness be the sole Condition of eternal Life then it necessarily follows that all our bodily Exercises in Religion do no farther conduce to entitle us to it than as they conduce to make us godly and vertuous which if they do not effect they give us no more Right to Heaven or Ground to hope for it than the most indifferent Actions in the World Hence our Saviour hath told us before hand that we may know what to trust to Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven Matth. vii 21. that is not every one that professes my Name and acknowledges me for his Lord and Master and makes solemn Prayers and Addresses to me shall be admitted into the Kingdom of Happiness such outward bodily Exercises as these will never entitle any Man unto that blessed Condition Tho' you should profess my Name never so solemnly and pray to me with never so much Fervor and Earnestness yet do not think I will be brib'd by such Trifles to connive at your Sins and admit you into Heaven notwithstanding all your Impieties no no I do assure you before hand that you may know what to trust to that there is nothing but your sincere Submission unto the Will of my Father shall ever perswade me to receive you into his heavenly Kingdom Let us not therefore flatter our selves any longer with vain Expectances of Heaven upon the account of our bodily Religion for unless our Natures are chang'd and our Minds reformed and better'd by it we may as well lay claim to Heaven because we eat and drink and sleep as because we pray and hear and receive Sacraments For tho' these bodily Exercises are profitable Means to entitle us to Heaven yet it is only upon this Account because they are Means to make us good but if they do not effect this they are all but so many insignificant Cyphers He therefore that builds his Hope of Heaven meerly upon bodily Religion builds upon a sandy Foundation which if he finally trust to will sink under him and bury him in eternal Ruins 4. And lastly Bodily Exercise profits but little in comparison with Godliness as to the qualifying us for Heaven which is a distinct Consideration from the former For supposing we could have a Right to Heaven without being disposed and qualify'd for it it would be no Advantage at all to us for before we can enjoy Heaven our Minds must be reconciled to the Pleasures and Delights of it or else it is impossible they should be Pleasures to us Now in the Temper of every wicked Mind there is a natural Antipathy unto all those pure and spiritual Joys wherewith the heavenly State abounds which being pure and chaste and refined can never agree with the vitiated Palate of a base degenerate Soul For what Concord can there be between spiteful and devilish Spirits and the Fountain of all Love and Goodness between sensual and carnalized Souls that understand no other Pleasures but only those of the Flesh and those pure and virgin Spirits that never eat nor drink but live for ever upon Wisdom and Holiness and Love and Contemplation How could I be happy in seeing that God whom I cannot love in conversing with those Spirits whose Genius and Temper I abhor and in being for ever employed in those heavenly Exercises to which I have the greatest Aversation no no till I am of the same Disposition with those celestial Inhabitants and my Mind is contempered to the heavenly State it is impossible that Heaven and I should ever agree and I may as well see without Eyes or hear without Ears as enjoy Heaven without a Heavenly Disposition For as to the main we shall be of the same Temper of Mind when we come into the other World as we are of while we continue in this it being unimaginable how our Disposition should be totally changed meerly by passing out of one World into another and therefore as in this World it is Likeness that doth congregate and associate Beings together so doubtless it is in the other too so that if we carry thither with us our wicked devilish Dispositions as we shall doubtless do unless we subdue and mortify them here there will be no Company fit for us to asscciate with but only the Devils and damned Ghosts of wicked Men with whom our wretched Spirits being already joined by a Likeness of Nature will be forced to congregate as soon as ever they are excommunicated from the Society of Mortals For whither should they flock but to the Birds of their own Feather Where should they join Society but with those malignant Spirits to whom they are joined already by a Community of Natures For supposing that when they are landed in Eternity it were left to their own Liberty to go either to Heaven or Hell yet Heaven would be no Place for them the Air of that bright Empire of eternal Day would never agree with their black and hellish Natures for alas what should they do among those blessed Souls that inhabit it to whose Godlike Natures divine Conversations and heavenly Employments they have the greatest Repugnancy and Aversation From hence therefore it is apparent that to our comfortable Possession of Heaven it is not only necessary we should have a Right to it but also that we should be prepared and qualified for it and as to this all our bodily Exercises in Religion are no farther profitable than as they are effectual Means of true substantial Godliness For when the Soul goes out of this Body
it must leave all this bodily Religion behind it and carry nothing with it into Eternity but only those divine Virtues and heavenly Dispositions which by the Means of this bodily Religion it did here acquire For our outward Professions and bodily Severities and Passions our praying and hearing and receiving of Sacraments are all but Scaffolds to this heavenly Building of inward Purity and Goodness and when once this is finished for Eternity then must these Scaffolds go down as Things of no farther Use or Necessity But as for the Graces of the Mind they shall stand for ever as the only fit Habitations of the heavenly Pleasures and therefore 't is impossible that these our bodily Exercises should formally dispose our Souls for Heaven since in Heaven they shall wholly cease For altho' our Love and Ioy and all our sweeter Affections shall there be kept in everlasting Exercise yet shall they be wholly refined from all bodily Passion because there we shall be stript into naked and unbodied Spirits Our Love shall unite our Wills to God and the whole Choir of blessed Spirits without any Warmth of Spirit or Expansions of Heart Our Ioy being purely the Jubilee of our Minds and the Recreation of our Reason shall flow without Shouts or Noises in a most sweet but silent Current and the whole Scene of our Happiness shall be transacted on the Stage of our Reason There being therefore no room for bodily Exercise in this heavenly State it is impossible we should be qualified by it for the Enjoyment of Heaven but doubtless our Fitness for Heaven must consist in such inherent Qualities of Mind as separate Souls may carry to Heaven with them and what these are may be easily concluded by considering what the Employment of Heaven is which so far as we are given to understand of it consists in contemplating and adoring the Divinity and in conversing with those pure and blessed Spirits that dwell for ever in his Presence Now to make us fit for such an Employment the only necessary Qualities of Mind are an universal Love and a profound Humility which two are the fundamental Vertues of Religion of which all the other Vertues are so many different Operations 'T is true our Love and Humility will not have all the same Operations in the other World as they have in this because there we shall not have the same Occasions for them for being placed above all Sufferings in the Enjoyment of the most perfect Good we shall have no occasion either for the passive Vertues of Patience and Meekness and Forgiveness of Injuries nor yet for those active Vertues which speak us distant from our Happiness such as Faith and Hope which shall be swallow'd up in Vision and Fruition But tho' in that blessed State we shall have no occasion to express our Love and Humility in such Acts as these yet without these two great Vertues we shall be no ways capable of the heavenly Employment for what Pleasure can we take in contemplating the Being of God if we do not love Him Doubtless our own Antipathy to the Goodness and Purity of His Nature will either avert our Eyes from beholding him or render the Sight of him horrible and dreadful to us And if we do not contemplate him with an humble and lowly Mind the Sight of his supereminent Perfections will either provoke our Envy or Contempt make us pine to see our selves out-shone by him or contemn his Glories out of an overweening Opinion of our own Again if we do not love God we cannot adore him with a free and chearful Mind and if we are proud and self-conceited instead of God we shall adore our Selves and become our own Idols and Votaries So that without Humility and Love we shall be no ways fit for the other part of that sweet Employment which consists in conversing with holy and blessed Spirits for their Conversation being wholly regulated by the sacred Laws of wise and holy Friendship and consisting in an everlasting Intercourse of chaste and mutual Indearments no Soul can be capable of bearing a Part in it that is not inspired with universal Love and great Humility both which are indispensibly necessary to every wise and friendly Conversation For where Humility is wanting every Trifle will offend and where Charity is wanting every Offence will kindle an unquenchable Discord So that a proud malicious Nature can converse no where with Satisfaction much less with those blessed Souls in whose most pure and perfect Friendship there is not the least Intermixture either of Flattery or Envy for being all perfectly good and perfectly happy they can neither over-value themselves nor envy what another enjoys so that in all their Conversation there is no Entertainment either for Pride or Malice but on the contrary there is nothing but what is distasteful to them for where there are none that over-value either themselves or others but every one loves every one with a sincere and inviolable Friendship there can be no Conversation but what is distasteful to an arrogant and malicious Temper What then should a proud malignant Spirit do among those happy Beings a great Part of whose Heaven consists in rejoycing in each others Happiness Doubtless could such a Spirit be admitted into their Society their Bliss would so enrage its Envy their Perfection so upbraid its Baseness that it would find nothing but Causes of Discontent in a Conversation so disagreeable to its Nature so that without universal Love and profound Humility there is nothing in Heaven that we can enjoy there being no Employment in that blessed State that is agreeable to the Genius of a proud and malicious Mind So that unless our bodily Religion doth make us really good by begetting in us those heavenly Vertues of Humility and Love it is altogether impertinent as to the disposing of us for Heaven and after all our fasting and praying and hearing and receiving of Sacraments we shall be found as remote from Heaven and as unprepared for it as if we had spent our time in gathering Cockles or telling the Sands upon the Sea-shore So that tho' this bodily Exercise be highly useful and necessary to our Reformation and Amendment and is in it self a very conducive Means to internal Holiness and Goodness yet compared with Godliness it self wherein our Holiness and Goodness doth consist it is of very little Account either as to the reconciling us to God or the perfecting our Natures or to the entitling us to Heaven or qualifying us for it Now from hence we may learn what the true End is of external and bodily Religion It is not required for its own sake without any farther End or Intention but for the sake of Godliness which is the ultimate Mark at which it ought to be levelled and directed And therefore as he that would build an House must make use of the Means the Tools and Materials of Building but if he think to build the House meerly
the main Spring God knows of all our Mischiefs lyes within our own bosomâ— And tho' many of us are sensible as we cannot well be otherwise that Sin hath a great hand in all our Sufferings and Calamities yet alas how few are there that reckon their own Sins into the tale They are the sins of the Court crys the City and the sins of the City crys the Country they are the sins of the Church crys the Separatist and the sins of the Clergy crys the Laity and the sins of the Gentry crys the Commonalty Thus every one washes his own hands and like the Whore in the Proverbs wipes his mouth and crys I have done no wickedness so that tho' none are guiltless and every one stands accused by his Antagonist yet if all may be believed none are guilty and so the Iudgments of God are posted from Tithing to Tithing from one Party of Men to another and no body will own them tho' they call us all Father which is just as if a company of People in a dreadful Conflagration should fall a contending with one another at whose House the fire began and in the mean time permit it quietly to burn on till it had consumed all before it Whereas if we would put a stop to the Iudgments that begin to flame about our ears we should every one reflect upon our selves and bring our Buckets of penitential Tears to extinguish that part of them which our own sins have kindled and if we would but do thus if every Man would smite upon his own Thigh and cry Lord what have I done then we might hope to see that growing Flame put out and quenched that now waves its curled Head and threatens universal Ruine but till once we are brought to a sorrowful sense of our own Sins and of the share they contribute to the publick Mischiefs we are not so much as in the way of Recovery For since the Cause of the Kingdoms Sickness lies God knows in all our Breasts how is it possible we should conspire to remove the whole till we are every Man sensible of his own part Let us therefore search and examine our own hearts what we have contributed to the publick Disease and every one purge out his own particular share of it and then to be sure all will soon be well again and this poor Kingdom that hath so many years been languishing under the Sins of its Natives and is now reduced almost to its last gasp will yet recover and once more flourish in perfect health and vigour 3. From hence I infer what is the just Character of those Men who by their Principles and Practices contribute to the Ruine of Kingdoms For since Iniquity so directly tends to a publick Ruine we may be sure that those Principles and Practices that naturally tend to the same end are Principles and Practices of Iniquity and yet good God! how many such are there that under the fair disguises of Christian Doctrines and godly Zeal and with their demure Looks and religious Countenances do many times seduce and cajole weak and well-disposed Minds into such seditious Gangs mutinous Practices and treasonous Conspiracies as do too often end either in their own Ruine or their native Countreys Thus in the Church of Rome what horrid and barbarous Practices have there been occasioned by those Antichristian Doctrines of the lawfulness of destroying Hereticks deposing and murdering of Kings How many Kings and Emperors have there been excommunicated butchered and destroyed by them How many flourishing Kingdoms have there been depopulated wasted and imbrewed in blood by them How many millions of Men Women and Children have there been sacrificed to the demands of those inhumane and blood-thirsty Principles Insomuch that it may be justly questioned whether for 600 Years together these Pretences of Christianity did not destroy more Lives than Christianity it self hath sav'd Souls And would to God that these destroying Principles had been for ever confined within the Pale of that degenerate Church Then might our Reformation have boldly challenged to it self the Spirit of Peace and Meekness of unbounded Charity unstained Loyalty and firm Allegiance and without a blush in its face have upbraided that Mother of Harlots with being the only Patroness of Treasons and Rebellions and Confusions But alas those that have turned the World upside down are come hither also and have sown their mischievous Principles in our fruitful Fields where they have sprung up many an ill Weed and these God knows have grown apace For not to touch upon the old Sores which for our own Credit sake and our Religions O would to God were lost in perpetual Oblivion how many are there this day among us that out of a pretence of Zeal for God and Religion make it their business to divide and tear rend and distract the Kingdom who by starting Jealousies and ill Surmises fetching and carrying Tales and scandalous Reports against the Government suggesting miscarriages of State that never were and blackning and aggravating those that are do what in them lyes to blow up the Discontents of the Kingdom into an intestine Flame and whilst the common Enemy is boring a Hole in the bottom of the Ship do set the Mariners together by the ears that so while they are scuffling within they may neglect the danger from without till one common Ruine involves them all and sinks them together with their Swords in one anothers Bowels And tho' it is notorious to all the World what a mighty Bulwark this Church hath always been to the Reformed Religion how much it hath been the Dread and Envy of Rome and the Mark of her Power and Malice how all her Agents have constantly conspired to fight neither against small nor great but against the Church of England in hope that if once this Master-fort were dismantled they should quickly force the lesser Garisons and Citadels to surrender yet how many Parties have we among our selves who yet pretend great Zeal to the Reformation that industriously set themselves to batter down its Sanctuary about its ears that join their Throats in one common Cry with the Priests and Iesuits Down with her down with her even to the ground and all this to gratify their prejudice againg a few innocent and indifferent Rites which as private Communicants they are very little if at all concerned in I do not charge these Men with a Popish Design tho' I am sure they charge us with it upon far less Reason but this I say and will maintain it that whilst they thus industriously set themselves to tear open the Wounds of our Church and widen them into incurable Schisms they take a most effectual course to open a gap for Popery which stands at the door and only waits till the Breach is wide enough for it to enter To conclude all therefore seeing it is the Sin and Wickedness of People and Nations that is the main Spring of their Ruine and Destruction let
which is the reason of that Civil War there is between the Law in its Mind and the Law in its Members that is between its Reason and Conscience and its corrupt Lusts and Inclinations because while its Will takes Part against God it sides with its Lusts against its Reason and whilst it doth so it will be so far from being happy that it will be continually at War with its self and its Will and its Conscience will be perpetually clashing with one another For so long as a Man goes against his Reason his Reason must necessarily go against him and be continually reproaching and upbraiding him and vexing his Mind with severe and angry Reflections And how can a Man enjoy himself whilst he is thus divided or how can he enjoy the Happiness of a rational Nature whilst he is thus divided from his Reason and lives in perpetual Variance with it A Body may as soon be at Ease whilst its Bones are out of Joint as a Soul whilst its Faculties are thus broken and divided If ever we would be happy with our Reason about us we must be all of a piece with our Reason that is our Will must be rational our Affections must be rational and our Actions must be rational if they are not our Reason will be as much against them as they are against it and so there will be an everlasting Broil and Mutiny within us Till therefore we are throughout perfectly rational that is till all our Faculties are intirely compliant with our Reason it is impossible we can ever be perfectly happy and tho' we had Power enough to defend our selves from all hurtful Impressions from without and to ward off the Blows not only of Devils and Men but even of God himself yet so long as our Reason and our Will are at Variance our Will will be a spightful Devil to us and our Reason an angry God So that while we are imperfect you see we cannot be happy and while we follow our own Will against God we cannot be perfect For to follow God and Right Reason saith the Philosopher is the same thing and to present our selves saith a far greater Author a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God is our reasonable service Rom. 12. 1. For the Will of God being invariably determined in all its Choices and Refusals by the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of his Nature must be the most perfectly rational Will in the World and as such the Standard and Pattern of all other Wills and therefore so far forth as our Will doth deflect from his it must necessarily be imperfect and irrational But while I govern my Will by his and do choose and refuse by his Commands and Prohibitions I follow the Pattern of my Perfection and while I follow his Will which is a most perfect Transcript of his Nature I transcribe his Perfections into my own For while I am copying his Will I am imitating his Nature and while I am imitating his Nature I am growing into his Likeness and Resemblance And when once my Will is all god-like and its Affections and Inclinations are perfectly conformable to God's then I am perfectly rational and shall be perfectly happy For now as I resemble God in his Perfections I shall resemble him in his self-enjoyment my Reason will be perfectly satisfied with my Will even as God's Reason is with his and my Nature will be a fair and beautiful Prospect to my Understanding even as God's Nature is to his I shall contemplate my own Graces with a transcendent Pleasure and Delight and while I alternately turn my Eyes upon God and my self and compare Grace with Grace and Beauty with Beauty I shall feel as he doth a Heaven of Content and Joy springing up in my Bosom Thus by denying our own Will you see and submitting to God's which is the Standard of our Perfection we naturally grow up into Blessedness whereas by following our own Wills in Opposition to God's we fatally sink our selves into Wretchedness and Misery 3. It is also to be considered that the Conformity of our Nature to our Happiness consists not in what we will but in what God wills To make us blessed it is not only necessary that there should be blisful Objects for us to enjoy but that our Minds should agree with and be contempered to them for unless we are affected suitably to the Worth and Excellency of them all the Objects of Heaven cannot make us happy For as Delicacies are grateful only to delicate Palats and Musick to musical Ears so the glorious Entertainments of the World to come are a Heaven only to heavenly Minds For to dwell with a God whom I do not love and to be confined to a Society of Spirits whose Tempers I am averse to to be put upon Exercises against which I have an Antipathy would be a tedious Constraint instead of a free Enjoyment so that before ever Heaven can be a Heaven to me my Mind must be tuned and adapted to its Joys and Beatitudes And this is not to be effected by following our own Will but God's for our Will as it stands in Opposition to God's is either a sensual or a devilish one or both and 't is either Covetousness or Luxury which are the Lusts of the Flesh or Pride or Malice which are the Lusts of the Spirit that sway and determine it in all its Choices and Refusals both which are as repugnant to the heavenly Enjoyments as Light is to Darkness or one Contrary to to another For between a spiritual Heaven and a carnal Mind a divine Heaven and a devilish Mind there is an irreconcilable Distance and for such a Mind to live happily upon such a Heaven is as impossible in the nature of the Thing as it is for a hungry Wolf to fill his Belly with Syllogisms or to satisfy its Appetite upon a Lecture of Philosophy Whilst therefore we give way to our corrupt Will and Inclination we do contract an Antipathy to Heaven and do what in us lies to prepossess our own Minds with an implacable Aversion to all its Joys and Beatitudes We take an effectual Course to antidote our Souls against true Happiness and to secure our Minds from being ever touch'd and affected with the divine and spiritual Pleasures of the World to come So that if we are still resolved to take part with our own wicked Will against God we were best take our Pleasure while we may have it while we live among these sensitive Enjoyments that suit with our brutish Appetites and Affections for when we go hence into the Spiritual World that will be like a barren Wilderness to us where we shall find nothing to live upon but be forced to pine away a long Eternity under a desperate Hunger and Dissatisfaction But if we heartily resign up our selves to God and prostrate our Wills to his we shall thereby quickly acquire a heavenly Frame and Disposition For the proper Business of
our Belief of Christianity because to believe without sufficient Reason is so far from being our Duty that it is our Defect and an Argument of our Weakness and foolish Credulity But now that Christianity hath been made known and sufficiently proposed to us we cannot be good Men unless we do believe it and if we do believe it we cannot be good Christians if we do not thereupon effectually resolve to obey it In short therefore they who have not the Gospel are obliged to obey God upon the Motives of natural Religion which is all that can reasonably be expected from them but as for us who have the Gospel wherein together with the Arguments of Nature God hath fairly proposed to us the higher Motives of Christianity we are bound to believe these as well as those and upon this Belief to proceed to a firm Resolution of Obedience which if we do our Resolution is strictly Christian in Contra-distinction to theirs who have not the Gospel and so resolve only upon Principles of Natural Reason not but that their Resolution is for substance the same with ours only ours is founded upon greater and more prevalent Motives The Duties of Christianity are the same with those of Natural Religion and excepting those three positive Precepts of Baptism and the Lords Supper and of worshipping God in and through Christ there is no Command in the Gospel distinct from the Eternal Rules of Morality which the Gospel doth improve upon new Principles and strengthen with more powerful Obligations And thus I have explained to you what is that Vital Form and Principle which in the Sense of the Law of Christ doth constitute us Righteous Men. In short he is a Righteous Man in the true Christian Sense who upon a through Consideration of the Arguments and Motives of Christianity is universally and prevalently resolved to obey its Laws To conclude all therefore from hence I infer 1. What is the true safe Way for a Man to resolve his own Conscience concerning the main State of his Soul whether in the Gospel-sense he be Righteous or no. I know it is a common Doctrine with some Men that the Resolution of this great Case depends upon an inward Whisper Suggestion or Testimony of the Spirit of God which I fear hath fatally deluded too many Men into a groundless Confidence and Assurance For when all of a sudden they feel themselves surprized with joyous and comfortable Thoughts they presently conclude it to be an inward Whisper and Testimony of the Spirit of God when many times there is nothing in it but an unaccountable Frisque of melancholy Vapors heated and fermented by a feverish Humour and many of these sudden Joys and Dejections which these Men interpret to be the Incomes and With-drawings of the Spirit of God do apparently proceed from no other Cause than the Shiverings and Burnings of an Ague upon which account Hysterical Fits are frequently mistaken for spiritual Exercises And when Men have most confidently believed themselves overshadowed by the Holy Ghost their Fancies have been only hagg'd and ridden by the Enthusiastick Vapors of their own Spleen And some times I make no doubt but this sudden Flush of joyous Thoughts proceeds from a worse Principle even from the suggestion of the Devil who tho' he hath no immediate Access to the Minds of Men can doubtless act upon their Spirits and Humours and thereby figure their Fancies with sprightly Ideas and tickle their Hearts into a Rapture and this Power of his we may reasonably suppose he is ready enough to exert upon any mischievous Occasion when ever he finds a Man willing to be deceived and to rely upon ungrounded Presumptions The true and only safe May therefore for a Man to resolve himself is impartially to survey himself and to consider whether in the main his Intentions and Actions are righteous If you ask by what Signs and Tokens shall a Man know this I answer there is nothing can be a true Sign of Righteousness but Righteousness nothing but what is an Act or Instance of Righteousness But then we must have a great Care that we do not argue from particular Acts and Instances that we are Righteous in the main For you may as well conclude that you are not blind because you hear well or that you are not deaf because you see well or that you have all your Senses because you have one or two as that you are Righteous in the main because you are so in this or that particular Well then how shall we do to resolve our selves in this most material Enquiry Why do but consider what it is to be Righteous and then reflect upon your own Motion and you will quickly feel whether you are Righteous or no for to be Righteous is for the main to intend righteously and act accordingly If you ask again how you shall know whether you so intend and act I shall only answer that it is an unreasonable Question and that you might as well ask whether you are hungry or thirsty because you do as naturally feel the Motions of your Soul as those of your Body and for you to ask another Man what your own Intentions are is to make him a Conjurer instead of a Casuist Would it not look extremely ridiculous for a Man to ask his Creditor or Customer Good Sir how shall I know whether I intend to pay my Debts or am sincerely resolved not to over-reach you Should any Man ask me such a Question I should only bid him consult himself and if then he suspected his own Honesty truly I should suspect that he had too much Reason for it For if a Man intends righteously to be sure he intends it knowingly and if he knowingly intends it he cannot but know he intends it for if he cannot know that he doth it it is because he cannot know how to do it and if he cannot know how to do it he is not a capable Subject of Morality but must of necessity live and act at random and blunder on like a Traveller in the dark without being able to distinguish whether he goes right or wrong Wherefore as you would not be deceived in a Point of the highest Importance in the world a Point upon which your everlasting Fate depends viz. whether you are Righteous Men or no do not measure your selves by any other Rule but this sure and infallible one in the Text He that doth Righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous 2. From hence I infer that seeing Righteousness is the good State of our Souls that the main Thing upon which we ought to value our selves is upon our being truly Righteous For if we have any such Thing as a rational and immortal Soul about us it is doubtless by far the noblest Ingredient of our Beings 't is that by which we are near allyed to Angels and do even border upon God himself He therefore who values himself by any Thing but his Soul and
cannot sin because he is born of God FOR the right understanding of these Words it will be necessary to enquire first what is here meant by committing Sin secondly what is meant by being born of God thirdly in what sense he that is born of God cannot commit sin First what is here meant by committing sin I answer that this Phrase in the Writings of this our Apostle hath a special Energy and doth not denote the simple doing of any sinful Action tho' it be out of Ignorance Incogitance or Frailty nor doth it only denote an habitual Course and Custom of sinning wilfully but primarily the doing of any sinful Action whatsoever deliberately wilfully and presumptuously For as for the first it is not true that he that is born of God doth commit no sin at all seeing the best of God's Children are liable to be surpriz'd into evil Actions through their Weakness Ignorance or Inadvertency of all which there are some Remains even in the most purified Natures And as for the second viz. the habit of sinning wilfully tho' that in the Apostles Sense is not only to commit sin but to commit it in the most eminent Degree yet it is plain that it is the deliberate Acts of Sin that he here primarily intends for so Verse the 4th he that committeth sin transgresseth the Law for Sin is a Transgression of the Law which is plainly meant of every single Act of wilful Sin So ver 8. he that committeth sin is of the Devil that is he is therein an Imitator of the Devil which is true of every deliberate Act as well as of the Habit of Sin So here in the Text he that is born of God doth not commit sin that is understanding him still in the same Sense he doth not commit any wilful and deliberate Act of Sin 2. Our next Enquiry is what is here meant by being born of God To which I answer that to be born of another denotes in general our receiving the Beginning and Principle of our Life and Motion from him and consequently to be born of God is to receive from him through the Operation of his Grace and Spirit the Beginning and Principle of our spiritual Life and Motion viz. a considerate universal prevailing Resolution to obey God proceeding from our Belief of the Christian Religion When therefore God by the Influence of his Grace and Spirit hath wrought our Minds into such a Resolution then are we truly born of him as having herein received from him the Principle of a new Life and Motion And this the Apostle expresses by being transformed by the renewing of our mind Rom. 12. 2. i. e. having a new practical Judgment and Resolution of Soul begotten in us and this he elsewhere calls the renewing of the holy Ghost T it 3. 5. Upon which account we may very well be said to be born of God because it is from his blessed Spirit that we derive this Renewing which is the Principle of our spiritual Life and Motion Our last Enquiry is in what Sense this Assertion of the Apostle holds viz. That he who is thus born of God cannot sin To which I answer That this Expression he cannot relates to the state he is now in he cannot as he is one that is born of God and while he doth continue so for so the Phrase is frequently used in Scripture So Rom. 8. 7. The carnal mind cannot be subject to God not but the Mind which is now carnal may hereafter be subject unto God viz. when it is renewed and changed but it cannot be so while it continues carnal And in the same Sense he tells us in the next Verse that it cannot please God So Matth. 7. 18. a good Tree cannot bring forth evil Fruit neither can a corrupt Tree bring forth good Fruit which can import no more than this that whilst the good Tree continues good it cannot bring forth evil Fruits nor the corrupt Tree bring forth good Fruits whilst it continues corrupt not but that one may hereafter become evil and bring forth evil Fruits as well as the other may become a good Tree and bring forth good Fruits So that the meaning of he cannot sin is no more than this it is so utterly inconsistent with the State of one that is born of God to sin wilfully and deliberately that when ever he doth so he actually falls from that blessed State and for the time ceases to be born of God And hence the Reason assigned why a Man cannot sin wilfully and be born of God at the same Time is for his Seed remaineth in him that is because that Principle of new Life and Motion which the divine Spirit hath produced in him and which is nothing else but an universal prevailing Resolution of obeying God remains within his Breast and for a Man to be universally and prevalently resolved to obey God and at the same Time to sin wilfully is a Contradiction in Terms because whenever he sins wilfully he is prevalently resolved to disobey him And therefore seeing in every wilful Sin we are prevalently resolved to disobey God while we are so our Resolution to obey him which is the Seed and Principle of our divine Life must necessarily be extinguished and consequently till such time as by our Repentance we have revived and recovered it we must cease to be born of God He therefore who is born of God cannot sin wilfully because while he continues in this State his Seed remains in him which is no more reconcilable to our sinning wilfully than contraries are in the same Degree And therefore he adds he cannot sin because he is born of God that is his State is such as will no more admit him wilfully to disobey God than to be dead and alive in the same Moment But in pursuance of this Argument it will be necessary yet further to enquire what those wilful Sins are which the Apostle here declares to be inconsistent with a good State or which is the same thing with our being born of God the Resolution of which is of absolute necessity to enable Men to make a true Judgment of their own State whether it be good or bad And in order hereunto it will be necessary to premise the following Particulars 1. That by wilful Sin I mean the Acts as well as the Habits of Sin 2. That by wilful Habits of Sin I mean such as are contracted by wilful Acts and are wilfully retained and indulged 3. That by wilful Acts of Sin I do not mean all evil Actions which have any Degree of Will in them but only such as are deliberately chosen 4. That the same Actions may be Sins of Weakness and Sins of Wilfulness in the same or different Persons under different Circumstances 1. That by wilful Sins I mean the wilful Acts as well as Habits of Sin To be sure there is no Sin can be consistent with our being born of God for which the Gospel binds us over to